IGF-1 LR3 A Use Guide For Practical Research Purposes
IGF-1 LR3 is one of those peptides that makes its rounds online. There's a flurry of hype, then it dies down, then it comes back. Today I want to give you a real overview of how to use it, what to expect, and what I learned running it on myself and my girlfriend.
I'm not on the hype train as hard as some people. That probably comes from my use of human growth hormone. But IGF-1 LR3 has a place, and it works.
What IGF-1 LR3 Actually Is
IGF-1 LR3 stands for insulin-like growth factor 1, long arginine 3. It's a synthetic version of natural IGF-1, which your liver produces in response to growth hormone.
Think of growth hormone as the upstream signal. It gets converted into IGF-1, which gives you most of the benefits we associate with HGH. The LR3 variant is engineered to bind less to IGF binding proteins, so more of it stays active in your body. It also has a much longer half-life than regular IGF-1 or IGF-1 DES.
So when you inject IGF-1 LR3, you're elevating IGF-1 levels throughout the entire day instead of pulsing them.
The Benefits
Most of these will sound like growth hormone benefits. Stick with me.
- More muscle mass through increased protein synthesis and reduced protein breakdown
- Faster recovery from training and injury
- Better body composition, more muscle and less fat storage
- Anti-aging effects on skin elasticity
- Improved bone density
- Better athletic performance and endurance
- Improved metabolic health
- Better overall well-being and cognitive function
After 30, your growth hormone and IGF-1 fall off a cliff. Something like 10% per decade. So really we're just bringing levels back to where they were when we were younger.
Side Effects to Watch For
Hypoglycemia. Low blood sugar is the main one. Even as someone with good insulin regulation, I felt this. Always have carbs on hand. Vitargo, cyclic dextrin, Starburst, gummy worms. Anything with sugar and no fat.
The cancer question. This comes up with anything that elevates growth hormone or IGF. My honest take is that the fear is overblown. Anecdotally, people have run this for decades without issues. And every time you look at the data on people who get cancer, they tend to have low IGF levels, not high ones. Higher IGF correlates with better immune function. I'm not telling you elevated IGF carries zero risk. I'm saying the picture is more complicated than the fear-mongering suggests.
Joint pain and edema. Fluid retention around joints. I noticed more intracellular water but no real edema. You'd have to dose pretty high to get there.
Carpal tunnel. Same as growth hormone. If you start getting it, you're taking too much.
Headaches and nausea. Sometimes from low blood sugar. Hard to separate the two.
Thyroid suppression. Nobody talks about this, but exogenous hormones including IGF, HGH, and testosterone can downregulate thyroid function. I support my thyroid with desiccated thyroid (prescription from a doctor). I avoid synthetic thyroid because it can cause a nasty negative feedback loop long term.
How I Dosed It
I started at 100 micrograms per day right out of the gate. Worked amazing.
The pump in the gym was phenomenal. I took it about 30 minutes before lifting. First day was a 10 out of 10. Second day a 9. Third day an 8. By day 10, it was probably a 5. That's the cellular attenuation and antibody buildup you get with exogenous peptides. So you cycle on and off.
I ran 100 mcg per day for 10 days.
My girlfriend used 50 mcg per day and felt great. She probably could have gone to 100. Women tend to dose closer to men with peptides than they do with androgens.
Reconstitution. A 1mg vial with 1ml of water. 10 units on the syringe equals 100 mcg.
Timing. I took it pre-workout for the pump. You could also do morning to elevate IGF throughout the day, or before bed to help sleep. Some people split into two doses for more stable blood levels. I just did one shot.
Duration. Conventional wisdom says 4 to 6 weeks. I felt tolerance hitting hard at 10 days on 100 mcg. If you do a lower dose like 30 mcg, or run it 5 on 2 off, you can probably stretch it longer.
If you're new to peptides, start at 30 mcg per day and work up. If you're experienced, 100 mcg is a good starting point.
You Need the Calories
This is critical. IGF-1 helps shuttle carbohydrates into the muscle efficiently. You need to feed it.
I ran this around Christmas when I was eating a lot more, and that's when it shines. High protein, high carbs, low fat. My appetite went up and I got more out of every calorie. The carbs went into muscle instead of fat.
If you're in a deep calorie deficit, the hypoglycemia issue gets worse and you won't get the muscle-building benefit. This is more of a building tool than a cutting tool.
What to Stack It With
Growth hormone. I ran 2 IU per day, split morning and evening, alongside 100 mcg IGF-1. Think of HGH as the base, like testosterone, and IGF-1 as the metabolite enhancement, like adding a DHT-derived compound on top of test. The synergy is real.
BPC-157. 250 mcg per day. You're training harder on IGF, so the tissue repair support is welcome.
5-Amino-1MQ. Hits a different pathway (NNMT inhibitor), so it complements rather than overlaps. Start at 100 mg and work up to 150 mg for fat loss and metabolic support.
You don't need HGH to run IGF-1. You could also stack it with a growth hormone peptide like Ipamorelin or Tesamorelin depending on your goals.
My Take
IGF-1 LR3 is good. The fear around it is overblown relative to plenty of other peptides and androgens. The pump and recovery on 100 mcg pre-workout were excellent.
The catch is it doesn't work forever. Tolerance builds fast, so you have to be locked in on training, cardio, and eating during the run. Don't waste it by being half-committed.
I'd use it again, definitely as a muscle-building tool more than a fat loss tool. Start at 100 mcg if you're experienced, 50 mcg if you're a woman, 30 mcg if you're new. Run it 10 days, eat the food, and get out before the tolerance kicks in.
Full transcript click any paragraph to jump video
Hey everybody, this is Hunter Williams. I hope you are doing amazing wherever you're at in the world. Today's video is going to be everything you must know about IGF 1LR3. So what I'm going do today is basically just give a comprehensive overview and guide on how to use IG F1LR 3. You've probably heard of this because it's one of those peptides that always comes up and it kind of makes its rounds. come up and it seems to be like a big flurry of talk about it on the internet then it kind of dies down and then kind comes back. So today I'm just going to give my own personal experience and use with it and also kind encapsulating that into a guide so you know how to use it if you
want to experiment with this research chemical on your lab rat as they say. That's what today's video is going about. I'll just give you the background on how it works on what kind of benefits you can expect to receive from it, side effects, the dosing, and what you're going to actually stack it with to enhance and maximize the effects. And then I'll also go into my own personal experience and then my experience with my girlfriend because I did research this with her as well and have an experience as it relates to women because this is something that women can use and they can it to great effect too.
So You know, I am not on the hype train as much as some other people may be about this. And that probably just stems from my use of human growth hormone itself. But you can use this synergistically with growth hormones, and you do not have to use it with group hormones. So if you have growth, hormone, you're gonna use with it, but you don't have So that's what today's video is gonna be about before I jump in and share my screen You guys know the deal like comment share subscribe all that good stuff helps pushing the algorithm even though I don't get pushing algorithm a lot because in my opinion what I say is not popular as to uh, the overlords that run everything.
But anyway, if the comments are off on this video, just know that that was not me. I try to turn the comment on on every video and I want open discussion, questions, concerns, anything like that in there. So just to know if comments were off, that there's a reason for that because YouTube does that manually. And I will try it to go back and turn them on. so just note that if this, video or any of the other videos of mine that you see, of comments or off trying to get them back on YouTube, Just for whatever reason, periodically, we'll go turn those off. And then lastly, before I jump in, don't forget to check out the peptide cheat sheet. The best way to keep up with me and to avoid any of the shadow banning and keep-up-on-my-stuff is to sign up for the email list.
So that's all I will say. And without further ado, let's jump-in and talk about IGF-1, LR-3, and how you can use it. All right, this is going to be the comprehensive guide and overview to IGF-1-LR3. So IG-F1 LR3 is basically a synthetic variant of natural insulin-like growth factor one, also known as IG F1, and henceforth, what I will refer to it as, just because that's a mouthful. It's designed to be a little bit more potent, so it's engineered for enhanced biological activity with a longer half-life compared to the normal half life
of just IGF-1, or if you are familiar or have seen IG-F1-DES for sale, that's a very short-acting version that you can supplement with the synthetic version supplement with, but primarily it simulates protein synthesis, facilitating cellular growth, differentiation and survival. And it's modified to bind less effectively to IGF binding proteins, increasing its availability and activity in the body. So what does it do? Where does that come from? So it basically, the long word for it is insulin-like growth factor one long ARG three.
It's a synthetic version of the natural IGGF one, like I mentioned, that is produced in the liver as a response to growth hormone stimulation. So IGF-1 is crucial for normal human growth and development. Think as growth hormones is in a body and then that gets turned into IG-F1, which gives us all the benefits that we typically associate with human-growth hormones. This variant, the LR-3-I, is engineered to possess a longer half-life making it significantly more potent and effective in its biological functions than the natural counterparts. So what that means is IGF-1 has a very, I'm not exactly sure off the top of my head what the half-life of it is, but it's very short-acting.
But when we take IG-F1-LR3, um, i didn't research the Half-Life for this, But I know it lasts like kind of like over the whole day. It's gonna help elevate IGf-I levels throughout the day So in doing so, what that's going to do is allow the body to burn fat, build muscle, improve collagen synthesis, all those things that come from a result of having elevated growth hormone levels in the bodies. It's gonna do that throughout the entire day, so we get all of those benefits throughout that day. So the mechanism of LR3 revolves around its ability to bind to the IGF1 receptor on the cell surface, initiating intracellular signaling that promotes
cellular growth, differentiation and survival. So unlike regular IGF-1, the LR-3 version does not bind as readily to IG-F brinding proteins, which typically inhibit the biological actions of IGFS. This modification allows for prolonged activity and efficacy in the body. Basically what we're doing when we are taking IGIF-L1-LR3 is we elevating IGFX levels for a prolonged period of time instead of pulsing them like we would normally or if we were using IGFI-DES. So let's look at the benefits of doing this.
So first, we're going to have enhanced muscle mass. It basically enhances muscle math and strength by promoting protein synthesis and inhibiting protein degradation. Now, a lot of these benefits that I'm going talk about are going sound like growth hormone, or they're gonna sound a growth-hormone peptide. Kind of stick with me here, but I'll explain why it's different as we go through this, so it accelerates recovery. It accelerates recovery time after workouts or injuries, making it popular among athletes and fitness enthusiasts. I can attest to this. It improves body composition, so it increases muscle growth and reduces fat storage.
And also too, there's the anti-aging effect, which contributes to anti aging, including skin elasticity and reduced signs of aging. which all sound good, right? And then we've got bone density, so it may improve bone-density, which is very huge, especially in the presence of today's world where lots of people suffer from osteoarthritis as they get older or osteoporosis. And also, too, a lot of guys end up suppressing their estrogen for whatever reason. I don't understand because if you look at the research, it's obviously very dangerous to suppress estrogen. But that could be another thing, too, that if you have suppressed estrogen for a really long time, you want to build back your bone density.
First of all, stop suppressing estrogen because then it's also going to inhibit the ability of human growth hormone to convert into IGF. That will be a topic for another video. But anyway, it will help with bone-density. We've also got athletic performance, so it enhances athletic performace by supporting greater physical strength and endurance. It supports metabolic health, so it supports a healthier metabolic profile, potentially aiding in weight management or fat loss. And then also too, it's just going to overall improve our well-being and vitality, making it appealing for anti-aging purposes.
I can attest to this, whether it is growth hormone or IGF, elevating growth hormones levels in the body to an extent, not to completely super physiological levels. Again, this is tough to necessarily test for this. Just give that surgically precise microdose of growth hormone, or in this case, IGF, it's going to enhance our well-being, enhance cognitive function, neuroprotection, and all those things. You know, after the age of 30, growth hormones starts to fall off a cliff, you know declining by a ton, every decade in our life. I forget the exact amount, but it is like up to 10% per decade that your IG and growth hormone levels start to decline.
So basically we're just boosting to where they would have been when we were younger so we can get all the benefits with very little if none of the side effects. Speaking of side-effects, what are some of these side effect? So the first one that you'll notice with IGF-1-LR3 is hypoglycemia, which is basically low blood sugar. I'm not sure exactly the mechanism behind this, but I do notice that, even myself who's very well insulin regulated, when I've used IGF-1,
you have to be careful with blood sugar levels and letting your blood get too low. So you just gotta be cautious of that. Always have carbs on hand, whether that's Vitargo or cyclic dextrin powder or even something like a Starburst or gummy worms that have lots of sugar in them, but no fat. Of course, with the growth hormone, you're gonna have to say this with every growth-hormone peptide or growth hormonal stuff is the C-word risk that it could cause. Now, I'm of the opinion that, first of all, if you look at anecdotal reports of people that have been using this for decades,
there's no evidence that causes this. I think you would get cellular attenuation that would negate any of benefits, so you stop taking this, this is gonna be one that you very, Ordinately cycling on and off of because you're gonna notice that the the buildup and tolerance of the body So I think you would build up tolerance to use to the point where you say like, okay I'm not gonna take this anymore You know if you've been using it for a long time before that would have occurred. Now, I can't sit here and tell you that if you have elevated levels of IGF-1, that you're not putting yourself at more risk for cancer.
What I cannot tell is that there is evidence to show that higher IGf is correlated with healthier immune system function, and if look at the incidence of C-word as people get older, it is always correlated lower levels in the body. So again, I'm not here to try to like dispel or dispute or fight anybody on this. I just think it's interesting. Everyone talks about IGF and the C word. Meanwhile, every time you look at people to get the c word, they have low IG f levels in their body. So, again I think I've made a video about that on my previous channel.
that I thought was really good. Maybe I can go back and find the research on that and make another one because I think when we're talking about surgically precise microdoses to boost ourself into healthy IGF-1 levels, which again is very tough to test from a blood marker's perspective, but when are in a healthy range there, I thinks it's gonna support immune system function which obviously as it relates to the C word, is going to help suppress the c word. Another side effect can be joint pain and edema. So this is from the fluid retention around the joints that happens when you supplement this.
Now, I think you'd have to take a pretty, pretty big dose. I didn't get any sort of edima. You can get that with big doses of growth hormone, but in this case, there was definitely more intracellular water around my joints and everything, it definitely wasn't edma. And I'll talk about dosing in a second. That's just my thoughts on that. As with growth hormone, there's a carpal tunnel syndrome, so you know you're taking too much if you start to get carpital tunnel. I've never really pushed my growth hormonal dose or pushed IGF dose to the point where I got carpial tunnel, but that's definitely something that people experience.
You can get headaches and nausea. Sometimes the headaches or nauseas are from the low blood sugar. Who's to say, you know, like is it low blood sugar? Is it like directly headaches and nausea? I don't know. And then thyroid function. So this is something that no one really talks about. I should actually do a longer form video on this on growth hormone thyroid functions. There's the thought that, growth hormones supplementation can suppress thyroid functioning. Now the great thing about that is we can use desiccated thyroid to help support thyroid functional. Therapeutic testosterone and androgen use can suppress thyroid function, which is why we use desiccated thyroid to optimize thyroid functioning.
We do not use synthetic thyroid, or I prefer not to use synthetic thyroid because it can cause a severe negative feedback loop in the long term. You can just jack yourself up more than you can hurt, support yourself, but there is that potential. But in my experience, I support my thyroid with desiccated thyroid, which is amazing. And you can get a prescription from your doctor for it, and it really helps counteract any sort of negative feedback loop. I'm not sure the exact mechanism. Basically, when we're supplementing with exogenous hormones, be it IGF-1, human growth hormone, testosterone, there's gonna be some sort down regulation
in the thyroid. So that's why we wanna help support thyroid function. In my experience, it really, really helps with the metabolism and fat loss and muscle building and everything that you'll need when you have the right levels. Now, let's talk about dosage. So, I can tell you my experiences, like in the quote unquote research that can come on the internet, people are gonna say, you know, start at 20 micrograms per day and then work your way up to 100 micro grams per. I've heard people taking like three or 400 micro-gram, so I don't think you would need to go up that much because I got really good benefit for 100-micro- grams-per-day.
I will say this, I started right out the gate at 100 micrograms per day. It worked amazing. I had great pumps at the gym. There's probably been other supplements I've used that helped me feel huge and have a good pump at gym, but IGF wanted 100mg like 30 minutes before my lift was a phenomenal pump. Now, what I will say is over the next few days, because I used it for 10 days. So I use 100 micrograms a day for ten days the efficacy kind of went down.
If the pump and energy for the workout was a 10 on the first day, it went to a 9 on a second day and then an 8 on third day. The last day, it was probably around a five somewhere. So I still noticed it, but it just wasn't as pronounced when I first take it. And again, that goes to the cellular attenuation and antibody buildup that you're gonna get from exogenous peptide use. Now, I mentioned my girlfriend, so she used 50 micrograms per day and felt really, really good. Honestly, she could have done 100 micro grams.
Again, this goes where, when you were talking about androgen use, men and women are gonna be very, very different. When it comes to peptides use and you know even growth hormone use I think the case could be made that women at least are going to be much closer in dosage of men so she felt great at 50 micrograms per day so we probably could have taken her to 100 but we just ended up doing 50. Again this is going be one of those things like I've heard bigger guys use 30 micro grams and they said it worked great so I wanted to see how 100 micrograms felt. I felt like that was a sweet spot for me so what I did you have a One milligram vial typically is what it's sold in, and so I just put one milliliter of
water in it and took 10 units, because that's 100 micrograms. It's one-tenth of 100 units. Ten units? 100 micrograms is one tenth of one milligram. And I took that every day before my workout, or if I was doing a fasting day, I would take it before cardio in the morning. I like to take it before the workout. I think you'd probably do it any time of day if I was gonna take just from a nitrogen retention standpoint, probably the morning, to help elevate it throughout the day. You could probably take in the evening too because it would probably help, you know, elevate IGF levels to sleep. But I liked it pre-workout because for the resistance training sessions I did, the pump was huge.
Again, it's kind of like diminishing returns, like over the next 10 days it went down. That's why you cycle on and off. So you could use it for 10 day and if, I really was trying to build muscle, irrespective of how many androgens I would be using, I will definitely throw IGF-1 into the mix. Now here's the kicker is you've got to have the caloric support for it. So I did this around Christmas when I was not necessarily like off my diet, but just eating a lot more. because that time of year, you're in the holidays, your family and stuff, so I was eating a lot more.
What you don't want to do is overload on fats too much of it, but it's going to really help with the digestion and muscle protein synthesis from protein and carbohydrates. So I would say high protein, high carbohydrates, and low fat when you are using IGF-1. It's definitely gonna help with shuttling those carbohydrates into the muscle to get the most effect out of them. So again, it's gonna go back to individual tolerance. If you're new to this stuff, start with 30 micrograms per day, work your way up. But if you were a veteran user of peptides and androgens and all those things, I would say start at 100 micro grams per I like it for 10 days and during
that 10 day you want like the caloric support needed to be able to get like bang for your buck out of it. And what it seems to do is help utilize the carbohydrates much more efficiently so that I can grow without storing those extra carbs as fat. So in doing so like I could eat more, my appetite seemed to increase and I get more bang from my buck, out those calories in order to turn them into muscle. You definitely can split them into two administrations per day for more stable blood levels.
I just tended to do one per 100 micrograms once per night. As far as duration, most schools will thought it would be like four to six weeks. Honestly, I felt a tolerance after like 10 days, but maybe that's because I was doing a higher dose. So maybe if you're doing 30 micro grams per or 30 grams every other day, maybe you can run it for four or six week. Or maybe, if do it five days on, two days off, like I would do my growth hormone. I think you've got to test out and see what works for you in that regard.
Now, what can you stack it with? So during my experience, I actually stacked it growth hormone. So I was doing two IUs of growth hormones per day, one in the morning, and one at the evening. And I'm doing 100 micrograms of IGF-1. Basically, it's just going to help support IGF levels in the body. I kind of liken it, don't take this literally, but I like it to using a DHT-derived steroid in addition with testosterone.
Testosterones are based and testosterone metabolizes into DHTs. But you can enhance the effects of that testosterone by supplementing with a DHT-derived steroid like a Masturon or a Primobolin or Anivore or insert your pick. So if HGH is the base, IGF-1 is like the Metabolite I don't know if that's the right word, but like basically like the like increased amounts over like increasing the growth hormone But then integration the IGF to so we're probably getting like total overall more IG f again You don''t have to have growth
on to do it, and I'd like to I use along with a hundred micrograms per day I like BPC 157 because I was training harder when I did this because you feel really good at the gym So just gonna help you know tissue repair and everything and And then I would say if you're gonna throw in another peptide, I think five-amino 1MQ because of the pathway that it hits is an NMMT inhibitor, which is a little bit different than the androgen pathway or the growth hormone pathway. So stacking with this can improve metabolic health, eating at fat loss and energy level enhancement.
But as far as the dosing, for those go, BPC 157, 250 micrograms per day, and then five amino. I'd probably start at 100 mg and then go up to 150 mg. That's really where you're going to see benefit, especially in my case, that I would say. The synergy with HGA, so the synergistic effects of AGH and IGF-1 can significantly enhance growth factor signaling, which promote even more tissue growth and more muscle building.
BPC-157 enhances the healing effects, making it ideal for recovery from physical stressors. And like I said, the complementary action between the pathway the 5-amino works on could be great for that too. and hopefully that answers all of your questions about IGF-1 LR-3. I would say, I think any of the fears around this are very overblown. Relative to like a lot of peptides or androgens or whatever supplements I've used, it worked really good.
It's just one of those things, like it's not gonna work for a long time. So you gotta like be conscious of that. Make sure that when you're doing it, you wanna be really dedicated to your training schedule, your cardio schedule and your eating schedule. You don't wanna do this like kind of transiently. especially if you're buying it because it is a little bit more expensive. You don't want to waste your money on it. But I give IGF a good rating. It's not one of those things you can use every day like testosterone, like growth hormone that you are going to be getting necessarily these pronounced benefits from. So I liked it a lot.
I definitely will continue to use it in the future, you know, pending like whatever goal I have for that time. Um, but it's great. You know, like I said, I started with a hundred micrograms per day. I think, you know female started 50 micro grams per date. See how you feel. And you can titrate up from there. Now my girlfriend is very fit, very active. Um you, know very good muscle base. So, um, and she's got good experience with peptides. so, uh, can actually check her out. She's on the YouTube channel and her name is Taylor Reed coaching. But yeah, I think, you know, men or women could get really good benefit from this.
You don't have to have HGH. I didn't mention this in the stacking, but you could use a girth hormone peptide, probably like Ipomerelin, Tessamereline, depending on what your goals were. But, is it, i would say it's more of a muscle builder than a fat loss tool. It could be used for fatloss, just depending. i think the issue you'd probably run into is if you're fatlosher in a calorie deficit and the hypoglycemic nature of it could, be a little problematic. But that's pretty much everything I gleamed from my own research on myself with it.
So hopefully that was helpful to you guys. Again, hopefully the comments should be on. Um, so if they are, you know, if you have questions, comments, concerns, any of that stuff, drop it down below. And then as always sign up for the email list, sign for a peptide cheat sheet or my supplement sources to find out where, I can get these things. I get a lot of people commenting like, where do you get this? Where do get? This is like. Hey, can't say that anymore because, uh, that. was what I got deleted last time. So check that out. Sign up for the email list. And the e-mail list is kind of like where I, you know, have my real, real thoughts, whereas like some of the YouTube stuff, I have to do a little self-censoring.
I appreciate you guys much love, and I will talk to you in the next one. Peace.
