Sermorelin, NAD+ and glutathione by telehealth: what the evidence shows

On October 29, 2026, Hims & Hers said it plans to offer sermorelin, glutathione, B12, NAD+ and L-carnitine through a new specialty called Peptides+, with BPC-157 and TB-500 to follow when allowable. On November 9 it said Peptides+ comes next, with clinician-led treatment plans and access to regular blood testing. The company's own announcement is unusually frank: "Most of what we know about these compounds is still early," it says, and "with limited published studies, we draw primarily from clinical experience from the last decade."

The short answer: that frankness is warranted. None of the first products is an FDA-approved treatment for energy, recovery, aging or wellbeing. Sermorelin has a handful of small 1990s studies in older adults showing that it raises growth hormone, with patchy and inconsistent effects on the body. For injected glutathione, a 2025 systematic review found a single placebo-controlled intravenous trial, and FDA issued a safety alert about one glutathione ingredient in 2019. NAD+ injections and drips have no outcome trials for anti-aging or wellness. A prescriber and a licensed pharmacy can make a product cleaner than a gray-market vial. They do not prove that it works.

What these products are, and how they can be sold

Only two of the five are peptides. Sermorelin is a 29-amino-acid fragment of growth hormone-releasing hormone, the brain signal that tells the pituitary to release growth hormone. Glutathione is a three-amino-acid peptide the body makes as an antioxidant. NAD+ is a coenzyme, B12 is a vitamin and L-carnitine is a nutrient; none of those three is a peptide.

None of them is an FDA-approved finished drug for energy, recovery, aging or wellbeing. Hims & Hers says licensed pharmacies will supply them. It does not say that each product is compounded. Sermorelin is discontinued, and glutathione and NAD+ are not marketed as FDA-approved finished drugs for these uses, so a pharmacy would compound those three for an individual prescription. Cyanocobalamin injection and levocarnitine injection are FDA-approved for deficiency, so B12 and L-carnitine might be dispensed as approved products instead. Compounded drugs are not FDA-approved, which means FDA does not review their safety, effectiveness or quality before they are marketed. Under section 503A of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, a bulk ingredient has to meet one of three conditions in order: it complies with an applicable United States Pharmacopeia or National Formulary monograph, if one exists, and the USP chapter on pharmacy compounding; if no monograph exists, it is a component of an FDA-approved drug; or, if no monograph exists and it is not a component of an FDA-approved drug, it appears on FDA's 503A bulks list. The ingredient must be manufactured by an FDA-registered establishment and must come with a valid certificate of analysis.

• Glutathione and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), the substance sold as NAD+, are in FDA's "Category 1" of nominated bulk substances, which the list updated May 14, 2026 calls under evaluation. NADH, the reduced form, is also in Category 1. Beta-nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide disodium salt trihydrate is in Category 3 on that same list, so it does not get the Category 1 enforcement pause. While FDA evaluates a Category 1 substance, it does not intend to take action against a compounder using it if the conditions in its interim policy are met. That is a decision not to act while the evidence is reviewed. It is not an approval.
• Sermorelin was once an approved drug. FDA approved it as Geref, for idiopathic growth hormone deficiency in children with growth failure and as a test of whether the pituitary can secrete growth hormone. The manufacturer, EMD Serono, discontinued it in 2008, and FDA withdrew the approvals effective June 18, 2009. In 2013 FDA determined that Geref was not withdrawn for reasons of safety or effectiveness. Drugs@FDA lists both Geref applications, NDA 020443 and NDA 019863, as discontinued. It was never approved for anti-aging or body-composition effects.
• BPC-157 and TB-500 belong to a different route: the interim HHS policy announced in the Federal Register on October 30, 2026, which covers six peptides. Until rulemaking is finished, HHS does not intend to take enforcement action against compounding of those peptides when the policy's conditions are met. That is not evidence that the peptides work.

Sermorelin: Insufficient for anti-aging

The best-known study is small. In 1997, ten women and nine men aged 55 to 71 injected saline nightly for four weeks, then a close analogue of sermorelin for 16 weeks. The trial was single-blind, and the placebo period came first rather than running in parallel. Nighttime growth hormone rose. IGF-1, the hormone that growth hormone drives, rose within two weeks but drifted back toward baseline by week 16. Skin thickness increased in both sexes. Lean body mass, insulin sensitivity, general wellbeing and libido improved in the men only. The one side effect reported was a temporary rise in blood fats that resolved by the end of the study.

A second 1997 study gave 11 healthy men aged 64 to 76 a nightly 2 mg injection of the sermorelin sequence for six weeks and compared measurements before and after treatment. Growth hormone release rose, but IGF-1 did not change. Two of six strength measures and one endurance test improved, and body composition, muscle tissue, blood sugar and blood fats did not change. The authors suggested that single nightly doses were less effective than multiple daily doses.

For healthy adults, that is the evidence: small, short hormone studies with inconsistent effects on muscle and no long-term outcome data. A 2026 review in Frontiers in Endocrinology groups sermorelin with other peptides marketed to push the growth hormone axis. It describes reported harms including blood-sugar disturbance, fluid retention and musculoskeletal symptoms, and it calls concerns about stimulating cell growth biologically plausible but unproven. Sermorelin is also prohibited in sport at all times: the 2026 World Anti-Doping Agency list names it under growth hormone releasing factors.

Glutathione: Insufficient for injections

Glutathione taken by mouth can raise the body's stores. In a six-month randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 54 non-smoking adults, people taking 1,000 mg a day, rather than the whole group of 54, had glutathione 30% to 35% higher in red cells, plasma and lymphocytes. The trial also had a 250 mg group. In most cases, levels returned to baseline after a one-month break. That trial measured glutathione levels and immune markers, not how people felt or aged.

Injected glutathione is promoted for skin lightening and for "detox". A 2025 systematic review in the International Journal of Dermatology found only one placebo-controlled trial of intravenous glutathione, in which 6 of 16 people on glutathione and 3 of 16 on placebo responded, a difference that was not statistically significant. The reviewers concluded that IV glutathione is contraindicated because of lack of efficacy and side effects.

Quality is a real risk with this ingredient. In 2019 FDA warned compounders not to use a glutathione powder labeled "Caution: Dietary Supplement" to make sterile injections. Seven patients at one clinic developed nausea, vomiting, chills and other symptoms within minutes of an infusion; one had low blood pressure and difficulty breathing and was taken to the hospital. Another patient, whose infusion was compounded by a different pharmacy, was admitted with a possible bloodstream infection. FDA traced the problem to potentially high endotoxin levels and said the manufacturer had confirmed the ingredient was not meant for sterile drugs.

NAD+: Insufficient for injections and drips

No randomized trial has shown that injected or infused NAD+ improves energy, recovery, aging or wellbeing. A 2026 systematic review of NAD+ for anti-aging found no eligible outcome trials of intravenous or intramuscular NAD+ for that purpose or for wellness. Randomized trials have reported other outcomes for intravenous NAD+ in heart disease and for intramuscular NAD+ in sudden hearing loss. Those trials are not studies of wellness. What exists for the wellness use is pharmacology. In a 2019 pilot study of a six-hour NAD+ infusion, plasma NAD+ and its breakdown products did not change for the first two hours, which the authors described as NAD+ being rapidly and completely removed from the plasma.

Tolerability is the other issue. In a 2026 retrospective review of records from a wellness clinic in Austin, Texas, all six clients given 500 mg of IV NAD+ daily for four days reported moderate to severe abdominal cramping, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, a raised heart rate and chest pressure during the infusions, and the drips had to run slowly. Symptoms stopped when the infusions ended. The study was tiny and had no placebo group. Its authors were employed by Restore Hyper Wellness, the company that funded the study. The paper says the company did not take part in the design, analysis, writing or decision to publish. Capsules of the NAD+ precursor nicotinamide riboside raised NAD+ in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, not in plasma, in a 2018 placebo-controlled trial in healthy middle-aged and older adults, although whether that helps healthy people is a separate and largely unanswered question.

What a blood test can and cannot show

Regular blood testing is a sensible safety feature. It can show whether sermorelin is raising IGF-1, or whether blood sugar or blood fats are moving the wrong way. On its own, it cannot show that a treatment is slowing aging or improving recovery.

Our view

• A prescription from a clinician who has reviewed your history, filled by a state-licensed pharmacy from a documented ingredient, is safer than a vial bought online. That is a quality argument, not an efficacy one.
• Do not treat telehealth availability as evidence. The company launching these products describes the published research as limited, and the published research agrees.
• Sermorelin acts on a hormone system. Ask what will be monitored and what result would lead the prescriber to stop it. If you compete in a sport with anti-doping rules, do not use it.
• For NAD+, start with the evidence on oral precursors before paying for injections. For glutathione, a 2025 review called intravenous use contraindicated for skin lightening, and no trial cited here supports injecting it for "detox".

Questions to ask before you start

• Which state-licensed pharmacy compounds this product, and does the bulk ingredient come with a certificate of analysis from an FDA-registered manufacturer?
• What outcome are we measuring, and when do we stop if nothing changes?

US rules

The injections discussed here are prescription drugs. Glutathione is also sold as a dietary ingredient, which is why FDA told compounders not to use supplement-grade powder for sterile injections. Compounded drugs are not FDA-approved, and FDA's Category 1 and HHS's peptide policies describe when the government does not intend to take enforcement action, not what works. Serious side effects from any drug, including a compounded one, can be reported to FDA MedWatch. If you have chest pain, trouble breathing, a spreading red, hot area around an injection site with fever, or feel faint, call 911.

FAQ

Is sermorelin FDA approved?

Not currently. It was approved as Geref for idiopathic growth hormone deficiency in children with growth failure and as a test of whether the pituitary can secrete growth hormone, then discontinued by its maker in 2008. FDA has said the withdrawal was not for safety or effectiveness reasons. It was never approved as an anti-aging treatment.

Do NAD+ injections work?

Not for energy, recovery, aging or wellbeing. A 2026 systematic review found no outcome trials of injected or infused NAD+ for anti-aging or wellness, and in a small clinic records study every client given IV NAD+ had moderate to severe symptoms during the drip. Randomized trials in heart disease and sudden hearing loss have reported other medical outcomes. Those are not wellness results.

Is IV glutathione good for skin lightening?

The only placebo-controlled IV trial did not find a statistically significant difference, and a 2025 systematic review called IV glutathione contraindicated because of lack of efficacy and side effects. Oral and topical forms have more trial data.