One peptide, tesamorelin, has strong human studies showing it targets harmful fat types like visceral, liver, and muscle fat, not just surface fat.

Visceral fat is metabolically active tissue that disrupts insulin sensitivity and metabolic function, and tesamorelin reduces it through mechanisms that improve fat quality, muscle composition, and mitochondrial efficiency, leading to long-term metabolic resilience.

In a 6-month randomized, placebo-controlled trial, tesamorelin significantly reduced both visceral and hepatic (liver) fat, with liver fat reduction being particularly important as it improves insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism.

Tesamorelin independently increases fat density in visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue, indicating improved fat quality with smaller adipocytes, better vascularization, reduced hypoxia, and decreased inflammation, independent of fat quantity changes.

A hormone treatment called tesamorelin lowers liver fat by 2.9% more than a placebo in people with HIV who have excess abdominal fat after six months of treatment.

In a 12-month randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, continued tesamorelin treatment led to an 18% reduction in visceral adipose tissue, while discontinuation resulted in rapid fat regain, demonstrating a direct and reversible cause-and-effect relationship.