TLQP-21

Where it comes from

Made in

Hypothalamus, sympathetic nerves, adrenal, pituitary and islets, cut from the VGF precursor

Sent out by

Sympathetic activity and cold

Acts on

• Fat cells (lipolysis)
• Sensory neurons (pain)
• Microglia
• Islets

What it does

• Raises energy use and fat breakdown; given chronically, prevents the early phase of diet-induced obesity in mice ¹
• Sensitises pain nerves after injury
• Lowers blood pressure in rodents, given once or over weeks

In medicine

• No medicine copies it or blocks it, and it is not measured in people
• Its receptor is the obstacle: it activates the complement receptor C3aR1 far more feebly at the human protein than at the rodent one, which is the main reason the mouse findings have not been taken towards people ²

Beyond the body’s own use

• Studied for obesity and for neuropathic pain in rodents, with no human trial. Over weeks it raised energy use and held off diet-induced obesity in mice, and the effect runs through adrenaline-driven fat breakdown ¹²
• Nothing containing it is approved or obtainable outside the laboratory
• The evidence is not all one way. A mouse engineered to lack this one peptide, with the rest of the precursor intact, turned out resistant to diet-induced obesity rather than prone to it, and only at some housing temperatures; that is the opposite of what the injection studies predict and is unexplained ³