--- title: "Tesofensine: dosing, half-life, where to buy" url: https://www.bodyhackguide.co/blog/tesofensine-guide description: "Tesofensine dosing (0.25-1 mg/day), the ~9-day half-life and accumulation problem, phase 2 weight-loss data, side effects, RUO status, and where to buy." lang: en --- Skip to content Compare notes with other researchers. Join r/BodyHackGuide (https://reddit.com/r/bodyhackguide) Image: Tesofensine: dosing, half-life, and where to buy (https://www.bodyhackguide.co/og-image.png) nootropics 10 min read Jun 30, 2026 Updated Sep 11, 2026 Fact-checked (https://www.bodyhackguide.co/editorial-standards) # Tesofensine: dosing, half-life, and where to buy Tesofensine is a triple monoamine reuptake inhibitor that drove 9.2% weight loss at 0.5 mg/day in one phase 2 trial, but it never finished phase 3, the flagship study carries a Lancet Expression of Concern, and its ~8-9 day half-life means levels build for weeks. It is research-use-only and not FDA-approved. B BioChonch Founder, BodyHackGuide Key Takeaway Key Takeaway Tesofensine is a triple monoamine reuptake inhibitor (dopamine, noradrenaline, serotonin) that washed out as an Alzheimer's/Parkinson's drug and got repurposed for obesity. In the 203-patient TIPO-1 phase 2 trial it produced 9.2% weight loss at 0.5 mg/day vs 2.0% on diet plus placebo PMID: 18950853 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18950853). Two big caveats: that trial carries a 2013 Lancet Expression of Concern PMID: 23561987 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23561987), and tesofensine never finished phase 3. Its half-life is reported at roughly 8-9 days, so blood levels accumulate for weeks. It is research-use-only and not approved for anything. ## What tesofensine actually is Tesofensine (development code NS2330) is a small molecule that blocks the presynaptic reuptake of three neurotransmitters at once: dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin. That "triple reuptake inhibitor" mechanism is confirmed in human studies PMID: 18950853 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18950853)PMID: 20520602 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20520602) and in rodent work PMID: 38656972 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38656972). In plain terms, it leaves more of those three transmitters sitting in the synapse, which dials up satiety and energy expenditure signaling. Here is the part most write-ups skip. Tesofensine was never designed as a diet drug. It started life as a central nervous system candidate for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. It flopped on those endpoints. But across four randomized double-blind trials (740 patients on drug, 228 on placebo), people kept losing weight as a side effect, dose-dependently, with no diet program attached PMID: 18356831 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18356831). The sponsor noticed, and the molecule got a second career as an obesity candidate. So the entire weight-loss story is built on an incidental finding that someone chased. That is not disqualifying. Plenty of useful drugs were found sideways. But it sets the tone: tesofensine is a repurposed leftover, not a purpose-built, fully de-risked therapeutic. ## The TIPO-1 trial: the number everyone quotes The headline data come from one study, the phase 2 TIPO-1 trial published in The Lancet in 2008. According to PubMed, 203 obese patients were put on an energy-restricted diet and randomized to placebo or one of three tesofensine doses for 24 weeks PMID: 18950853 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18950853) (DOI (https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61525-1)). Diet + placebo 2.0% baseline 0.25 mg/day 4.5% up 0.5 mg/day 9.2% up 1.0 mg/day 10.6% up All three doses beat diet plus placebo at p<0.0001. The authors flagged 0.5 mg as the sweet spot: roughly double the weight loss of approved drugs at the time, with side effects that were still manageable. The 1.0 mg arm squeezed out only about 1.4 percentage points more weight loss while adding tolerability problems, so dose-stacking past 0.5 mg gave diminishing returns. Read the trial with a caveat In 2013 The Lancet published a formal Expression of Concern about this exact 2008 paper PMID: 23561987 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23561987) (DOI (https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60778-3)). An Expression of Concern is not a retraction, but it is the journal publicly flagging that something about the work warranted scrutiny. Combine that with the fact that tesofensine never completed a confirmatory phase 3 obesity trial, and the honest read is: the 9.2% figure is a promising single-study result, not a settled fact. Treat it as a hypothesis that was never confirmed. ## The half-life problem nobody plans around This is where tesofensine gets genuinely unusual. Its half-life is commonly reported at roughly 8-9 days (around 220 hours), among the longest of any small-molecule weight agent. I want to be straight about that number: the 8-9 day figure traces to sponsor and regulatory pharmacokinetic summaries, and I could not verify the exact "9 days" in any PubMed-indexed paper. What the published PK literature does confirm is that tesofensine undergoes enterohepatic circulation, which produces multiple plasma peaks and a prolonged apparent elimination half-life PMID: 19705923 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19705923) (DOI (https://doi.org/10.2165/11313370-000000000-00000)). The drug gets reabsorbed through the gut-liver loop, which drags out how long it sticks around. What does a multi-day half-life mean in practice? Two things, and they are inferences from the pharmacokinetics rather than a printed clinical guideline: - **Accumulation.** With once-daily dosing and a half-life measured in days, plasma levels keep climbing for something like 4-6 weeks before they plateau at steady state. The dose you feel in week one is not the dose you are sitting on in week five. Effects and side effects build gradually. - **Forgiveness for missed doses, but slow correction for overshooting.** Skip a single day and your blood level barely moves. That sounds convenient. The flip side is the dangerous one: if you titrate up too fast and overshoot, you cannot just stop and flush it out. You are stuck with elevated levels for over a week. Why this argues for low and slow Because the drug stacks for weeks, the smart approach in any research setting is to start at the low end, hold, and let levels stabilize before judging whether to move up. Chasing a faster result by escalating quickly is exactly the wrong move with a drug this slow to clear. This is pharmacokinetic reasoning, not a dosing prescription. ## Research dosing that's actually been studied The doses with human data behind them are 0.25, 0.5, and 1.0 mg once daily, all from TIPO-1 PMID: 18950853 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18950853). The 0.5 mg dose is the one judged to balance efficacy and tolerability. The 1.0 mg dose worked but added side-effect burden for marginal extra loss. There is no validated titration schedule in the literature, because no regulator ever approved a label. Given the half-life math above, a cautious low-and-slow ramp is the defensible approach. Tesofensine is not FDA-approved for any indication, so nothing here is medical dosing advice. It is a description of what was studied. Anyone handling it should treat it as the unproven research compound it is and loop in a clinician. ## Side effects: mostly GI, plus a heart-rate signal The human side-effect profile from TIPO-1 was dominated by gastrointestinal and sleep complaints: dry mouth, nausea, constipation, hard stools, diarrhea, and insomnia PMID: 18950853 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18950853). The dry mouth and constipation track with the noradrenergic and dopaminergic activity. The cardiovascular signal is the one worth watching. At 0.25 and 0.5 mg there was no significant rise in blood pressure versus placebo, but heart rate climbed by 7.4 bpm in the 0.5 mg group (p=0.0001) PMID: 18950853 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18950853). The Parkinson's/Alzheimer's meta-analysis saw the same pattern: dose-dependent heart-rate increase, no blood-pressure effect PMID: 18356831 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18356831). That heart-rate bump is consistent and dose-related, so it is not noise. It mattered enough that a later formulation, Tesomet, bolted a beta-blocker onto the molecule specifically to blunt it. Tesomet (0.5 mg tesofensine plus 50 mg metoprolol) in adults with hypothalamic obesity gave an extra 6.3% weight loss versus placebo over 24 weeks, with no significant change in heart rate or blood pressure PMID: 35294397 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35294397) (DOI (https://doi.org/10.1530/EJE-21-0972)). The takeaway: the cardiovascular effect is real enough that researchers engineered around it. Mood and psychiatric effects are the murkier zone. The Tesomet trial logged sleep disturbance, dry mouth, and headache, and one participant had a serious adverse event of exacerbated pre-existing anxiety PMID: 35294397 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35294397). Human data on mood specifically is thin, so I would keep claims modest: insomnia is well documented, anything beyond that is a watch-this-space concern rather than a quantified risk. One reassuring note. In 52 recreational stimulant users, tesofensine's subjective effects were no different from placebo and well below D-amphetamine, putting its abuse potential in the same low bucket as bupropion or atomoxetine PMID: 20520602 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20520602) (DOI (https://doi.org/10.1038/clpt.2010.67)). So despite the dopamine activity, it does not read as a recreational stimulant. ## How it works in the brain (rodent-level) The mechanistic detail beyond "triple reuptake inhibitor" is preclinical. In mice and rats, tesofensine silences a subset of GABAergic neurons in the lateral hypothalamus, which dials down feeding drive, and it produced more weight loss in obese animals than lean ones PMID: 38656972 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38656972) (DOI (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0300544)). It also blocked the body-weight rebound that usually follows weight loss. That rebound-blocking effect is interesting, because rebound is the thing that sinks most diet interventions, but it is rodent data. Do not promote it to a human claim. ## Legal and RUO status Tesofensine is not FDA-approved for obesity or anything else. It never completed phase 3 for obesity. It exists in the gray market strictly as research-use-only (RUO) material, the same regulatory bucket as most research peptides. It is not a supplement, not a prescription drug, and not for human consumption under its RUO labeling. If you see it sold as a finished weight-loss product making clinical claims, that is a red flag. ## Where to buy tesofensine If you are sourcing it for research, sourcing quality is the whole game with a niche RUO compound. We point readers to BHG Labs (https://bhglabs.co/product/tesofensine/?ref=zmgqyxku&coupon=BHG20), which sells tesofensine as capsules (around $109.99), lot-numbered with a third-party certificate of analysis linked to each batch. Reader discount Reader discount code **BHG20** takes 20% off. See our BHG Labs vendor profile (https://www.bodyhackguide.co/vendors/bhg-labs) and the vendor scorecard (https://www.bodyhackguide.co/vendors/scorecard) for how it stacks up. For the compound's full data sheet, see our tesofensine compound page (https://www.bodyhackguide.co/compound/tesofensine). ## Further reading - Tesofensine compound page: https://www.bodyhackguide.co/compound/tesofensine - BHG Labs vendor profile: https://www.bodyhackguide.co/vendors/bhg-labs - Vendor scorecard: https://www.bodyhackguide.co/vendors/scorecard - Semax compound page: https://www.bodyhackguide.co/compound/semax - Selank compound page: https://www.bodyhackguide.co/compound/selank - Noopept compound page: https://www.bodyhackguide.co/compound/noopept ## Frequently asked Tesofensine is a triple monoamine reuptake inhibitor that blocks the reuptake of dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin, which increases satiety and energy-expenditure signaling. It was originally a failed Alzheimer's and Parkinson's candidate that was repurposed for obesity after trials showed dose-dependent weight loss as a side effect [PMID:18356831]. It is research-use-only and not approved by the FDA for any use. Share this article: 𝕏 / Twitter (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Tesofensine%3A%20dosing%2C%20half-life%2C%20and%20where%20to%20buy&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bodyhackguide.co%2Fblog%2Ftesofensine-guide) B BioChonch (https://www.bodyhackguide.co/about)Founder & Lead Researcher Founder, BodyHackGuide Join r/BodyHackGuide on Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/bodyhackguide Join Discord: https://discord.gg/Mhq5UdRYBA | About the author: https://www.bodyhackguide.co/about ## Discussion Sign in to join the discussion No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts! ## Price drops and new research New guides, price-drop alerts, and reader-submitted protocols. Unsubscribe anytime. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## Related Articles nootropics ### Nootropic Pouches: Everything You Need to Know Read https://www.bodyhackguide.co/blog/nootropic-pouches-guide nootropics ### Can Nootropics Replace Alcohol? 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All rights reserved. · Terms (https://www.bodyhackguide.co/terms) · Privacy (https://www.bodyhackguide.co/privacy) Shop BHG Labs · 20% off with BHG20: https://bhglabs.co/shop/?ref=zmgqyxku&coupon=BHG20 ## Structured data ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Blog", "item": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co/blog" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Tesofensine: dosing, half-life, and where to buy" } ] }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BlogPosting", "headline": "Tesofensine: dosing, half-life, and where to buy", "description": "Tesofensine is a triple monoamine reuptake inhibitor that drove 9.2% weight loss at 0.5 mg/day in one phase 2 trial, but it never finished phase 3, the flagship study carries a Lancet Expression of Concern, and its ~8-9 day half-life means levels build for weeks. It is research-use-only and not FDA-approved.", "image": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co/og-image.png", "datePublished": "2026-06-30T05:51:09.042215+00:00", "dateModified": "2026-09-11T17:10:11.930211+00:00", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "BioChonch", "url": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co/about", "jobTitle": "Founder & Lead Researcher", "sameAs": [ "https://reddit.com/r/BodyHackGuide", "https://reddit.com/r/BrainHackGuide", "https://reddit.com/r/Biohackingher" ], "worksFor": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "BodyHackGuide", "url": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co" } }, "reviewedBy": { "@type": "Person", "name": "BioChonch", "url": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co/about", "jobTitle": "Founder & Lead Researcher", "sameAs": [ "https://reddit.com/r/BodyHackGuide", "https://reddit.com/r/BrainHackGuide", "https://reddit.com/r/Biohackingher" ], "worksFor": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "BodyHackGuide", "url": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co" } }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "BodyHackGuide", "url": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co/bhglogo.png" } }, "mainEntityOfPage": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co/blog/tesofensine-guide", "wordCount": 1952, "timeRequired": "PT10M", "articleSection": "nootropics", "inLanguage": "en-US", "isAccessibleForFree": true, "speakable": { "@type": "SpeakableSpecification", "cssSelector": [ "h1", ".blog-tldr", "article p:first-of-type" ] } }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is tesofensine and how does it work?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Tesofensine is a triple monoamine reuptake inhibitor that blocks the reuptake of dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin, which increases satiety and energy-expenditure signaling. It was originally a failed Alzheimer's and Parkinson's candidate that was repurposed for obesity after trials showed dose-dependent weight loss as a side effect [PMID:18356831]. It is research-use-only and not approved by the FDA for any use." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How much weight did tesofensine cause people to lose?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "In the phase 2 TIPO-1 trial, 0.5 mg/day produced 9.2% weight loss over 24 weeks versus 2.0% on diet plus placebo, and 1.0 mg produced 10.6% [PMID:18950853]. Those numbers come from a single study that later received a Lancet Expression of Concern [PMID:23561987] and was never confirmed in phase 3, so treat them as promising but unproven." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is tesofensine's half-life and why does it matter?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "It is reported at roughly 8-9 days (about 220 hours), which is exceptionally long for a small molecule, though that exact figure comes from sponsor and regulatory summaries rather than a peer-reviewed paper. Published pharmacokinetics confirm it undergoes enterohepatic circulation, giving multiple plasma peaks and a prolonged half-life [PMID:19705923]. The practical effect is that blood levels accumulate for weeks before they stabilize, so effects and side effects build gradually and overshooting a dose is hard to undo." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What doses of tesofensine have actually been studied?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Human trials used 0.25, 0.5, and 1.0 mg once daily, with 0.5 mg judged to balance efficacy and tolerability [PMID:18950853]. There is no approved label or validated titration schedule, and given the multi-day half-life, a cautious low-and-slow approach is the defensible one. None of this is medical dosing advice for an unapproved compound." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What are the side effects of tesofensine?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The most common are dry mouth, nausea, constipation, hard stools, diarrhea, and insomnia, plus a dose-dependent heart-rate increase of about 7.4 bpm at 0.5 mg, with no significant blood-pressure change at the lower doses [PMID:18950853]. The heart-rate signal was consistent enough that the Tesomet formulation added a beta-blocker to counter it [PMID:35294397]. Human data on mood effects is limited, so insomnia is the best-documented neuropsychiatric complaint." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is tesofensine addictive?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The data suggests no meaningful abuse potential. In 52 recreational stimulant users, its subjective effects did not differ from placebo and were lower than D-amphetamine, putting it on par with bupropion or atomoxetine [PMID:20520602]. Despite acting on dopamine, it does not produce a recreational stimulant high at studied doses." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is tesofensine legal and FDA-approved?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "No. Tesofensine is not FDA-approved for any indication and never completed phase 3 for obesity. It is sold only as research-use-only material, which means it is not intended for human consumption and carries no clinical guarantees. Quality varies by vendor, so lot numbers and a third-party certificate of analysis matter." } } ] }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co#organization", "name": "BodyHackGuide", "alternateName": "BHG", "url": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.bodyhackguide.co/logo.png", "width": 512, "height": 512 }, "description": "Evidence-based research reference for peptides and nootropics. 124+ compound profiles, interactive dosing calculators, vendor price comparisons, and trust-scored vendor reviews scored on a public, reproducible methodology applied to every vendor. 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