Emerging ResearchPeptide

5-Amino-1MQ

The NNMT inhibitor

NNMT Inhibitor (small molecule)

Last updated: August 2026

Evidence Level: Emerging Research

Very new, early-stage research, high uncertainty

Regulatory Status: Not approved anywhere and not a peptide. Sold as a "research chemical." No investigational new drug program has been publicly reported.

5-Amino-1MQ is a small molecule that blocks an enzyme called NNMT, which fat cells use heavily. In obese mice, blocking it reduced fat mass and raised cellular NAD+. It is sold online as a fat-loss and longevity compound. As of 2026, no completed human clinical trial of 5-Amino-1MQ has been published, so every claim you will read about it is an extrapolation from rodents.

How It Works

The mechanism here is real science, and it is worth understanding even though the human evidence does not exist yet.

What NNMT does. Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase, or NNMT, is an enzyme that chemically tags nicotinamide (a form of vitamin B3) so your body clears it out. Nicotinamide is a building block your cells use to make NAD+, the molecule that powers energy production and several repair pathways. So the more NNMT activity you have, the more of that building block gets thrown away instead of recycled into NAD+.

Why fat tissue matters. NNMT is unusually active in fat tissue, and its activity increases in obesity and with age. That produced an appealing hypothesis: if you inhibit NNMT specifically, fat cells hold on to more nicotinamide, make more NAD+, run their metabolism faster, and store less fat.

What was actually tested. Researchers identified 5-Amino-1MQ as a potent, reasonably selective NNMT inhibitor. In diet-induced obese mice, treatment reduced fat mass and body weight without changing how much the animals ate, which is exactly what the hypothesis predicts.

Where it stops. That is the end of the evidence. Mice are not small people, especially where metabolism is concerned, and the history of obesity drug development is largely a history of compounds that worked beautifully in rodents and did nothing in humans. There is no published human pharmacokinetic data, no published human safety data, and no completed efficacy trial.

One more thing worth saying plainly: 5-Amino-1MQ is not a peptide. It is a quinolinium small molecule. It gets sold and discussed alongside peptides, but it does not belong to that chemical family.

Evidence by Outcome

Each claim below is rated using a GRADE-aligned five-tier system. Same molecule, different outcomes, different evidence.

Evidence at a glance

How we grade

Weight lossPreclinical
Longevity biomarkersPreclinical

Want to see how this compares to every other peptide? Browse the full evidence matrix, where every graded claim is grouped by outcome and sorted by certainty.

Weight lossPreclinical certainty

Reduces body fat.

Population: No human population has been studied. Evidence is from diet-induced obese mice.

Why this rating

All efficacy data comes from rodent models. There are no completed, published human clinical trials of 5-Amino-1MQ for any outcome, and no published human pharmacokinetic or safety data. Rodent obesity models have a long history of failing to predict human results, so this claim should be read as a hypothesis rather than a finding.

Supporting studies

Selective NNMT inhibitors reverse high fat diet-induced obesity in miceAnimal Study
2018
Reduced body weight and fat mass in obese mice without a change in food intake.

Reviewed 2026-08-24· Designing Longevity EditorialHow we grade

Longevity biomarkersPreclinical certainty

Raises cellular NAD+ levels.

Population: No human population has been studied. Evidence is from mouse tissue and cell culture.

Why this rating

NAD+ elevation via NNMT inhibition is well demonstrated in cells and mouse tissue and follows directly from the enzyme's known function. It has never been measured in humans taking this compound, and even in the NMN and NR literature, where human NAD+ elevation is documented, it has not reliably translated into clinical benefit.

Supporting studies

NNMT inhibition and NAD+ salvageIn-Vitro
2018
Inhibiting NNMT increased available nicotinamide and raised cellular NAD+ in preclinical models.

Reviewed 2026-08-24· Designing Longevity EditorialHow we grade

Potential Benefits

A well-characterized, biologically plausible mechanism targeting an enzyme genuinely elevated in obesity
Reduced fat mass in diet-induced obese mice without reducing food intake
Raised cellular NAD+ in preclinical models, a different route than NMN or NR take
Orally active in animal models, which would make human dosing straightforward if it ever gets there

Risks & Considerations

Zero completed published human clinical trials as of 2026, for either safety or efficacy
No published human pharmacokinetic data, so nobody knows what dose does what in a person
NNMT is active in tissues beyond fat, including the liver and brain, and the consequences of inhibiting it long-term in humans are unstudied
No IND-enabling toxicology has been publicly reported, which is the step that would normally catch organ toxicity
Unregulated supply chain with no verified purity or dose accuracy
Marketed with specific percentage claims that have no human data behind them at all

Dosing Information

There is no established human dose, because there has never been a human dose-finding study. Vendors commonly suggest 50mg to 150mg daily orally, a range that traces back to nothing published.

•Mouse studies used doses that do not translate directly to humans by body weight
•The 50mg to 150mg daily range circulating online has no published human basis
•No published data exists on absorption, half-life, or tissue distribution in humans
•We are not recommending a protocol for a compound with no human safety data

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Practical Tips

1Treat this as an interesting research compound, not a supplement with a known risk profile
2If your goal is raising NAD+, NMN and NR at least have human trials, even if the outcome data there is also weak. See our NMN guide
3If your goal is fat loss, the evidence gap between this and a GLP-1 is not close
4Be skeptical of any vendor quoting a specific fat-loss percentage. No human study has produced one
5If you take it anyway, tell your doctor, and understand you are the experiment

Key Research

Small molecule nicotinamide N-methyltransferase inhibitor activates senescent muscle stem cells and improves regenerative capacity of aged skeletal muscle

Biochemical Pharmacology, 2019

NNMT inhibition with 5-Amino-1MQ improved muscle stem cell function and regeneration in aged mice.

Selective and membrane-permeable small molecule inhibitors of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase reverse high fat diet-induced obesity in mice

Journal of Medicinal Chemistry / Biochemical Pharmacology, 2018

Treatment of diet-induced obese mice reduced body weight and fat mass without reducing food intake, and raised cellular NAD+.

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Always consult a healthcare provider before starting any treatment.This treatment has very early human evidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are there any human studies on 5-Amino-1MQ?

No completed human clinical trial of 5-Amino-1MQ has been published as of 2026, and no completed trial appears on ClinicalTrials.gov. Everything known about its effects comes from cell culture and mouse studies. That means there is no human data on what dose to use, how much is absorbed, how long it lasts in the body, or whether it is safe over months or years.

Is 5-Amino-1MQ a peptide?

No. It is a small molecule, specifically a quinolinium compound, not a chain of amino acids. It is grouped with peptides in most online catalogs and community discussions, which is why we list it here, but chemically it belongs to a different family entirely.

How does 5-Amino-1MQ compare to NMN or NR?

They approach NAD+ from opposite directions. NMN and NR supply more raw material for your cells to build NAD+. 5-Amino-1MQ instead blocks the enzyme that disposes of that raw material, so more of what you already have gets recycled. NMN and NR at least have human trials showing they raise NAD+ levels, even though the downstream health benefits remain unproven. 5-Amino-1MQ has no human trials at all.

Does 5-Amino-1MQ cause weight loss in humans?

Nobody knows, because it has never been tested in humans. In diet-induced obese mice it reduced fat mass without reducing food intake, which is a genuinely interesting result. Rodent obesity findings have a poor track record of translating to people, so this should be treated as an untested hypothesis rather than an expected effect.

Is 5-Amino-1MQ safe?

Unknown. There is no published human safety data and no publicly reported IND-enabling toxicology, which is the formal step that would normally screen for organ damage before human dosing. NNMT is also active in the liver and brain, not just fat tissue, so the effects of inhibiting it long-term across the whole body are unstudied.

Why is 5-Amino-1MQ so heavily marketed if there are no human trials?

Because the mechanism is legitimate and easy to explain, the mouse data is real, and the compound is cheap to synthesize and sits outside drug regulation. That combination makes it attractive to sell. None of it substitutes for evidence that the compound does anything in a human body.

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