5-amino-1MQ is sold as a capsule that is said to "switch on" fat metabolism by blocking an enzyme called NNMT. It is a small synthetic molecule, not a peptide, and it reaches buyers through the same stores as research peptides. Our 5-amino-1MQ dosage page covers the figures that circulate and where they come from. This page asks the side-effect question: what has been observed when the compound was given to a living animal, what was measured, and what nobody has looked at. It recommends nothing.
The record, counted on 2 October 2026
| Source | Query | Result |
|---|---|---|
| ClinicalTrials.gov (v2 API) | "5-amino-1MQ"; intervention "NNMT" | 0 studies; 0 studies |
| openFDA drug adverse events (FAERS) | medicinal product "5-amino-1MQ", two other spellings, and "NNMT" | no matches |
| PubMed | 5-amino-1MQ, 5-amino-1-methylquinolinium or 5A1MQ in title/abstract | 4 records |
| PubMed | the concept: NNMT inhibitors in obese mice | 11 records, incl. the 2018 founding paper the literal search misses |
The literal search misses the paper that introduced the compound. Neelakantan and colleagues' 2018 Biochemical Pharmacology study names it only as "a potent NNMT inhibitor" in its abstract, so a search on the product name returns four records and leaves out the first animal data. A 2025 Italian cancer-cell study abbreviates it "5-AMQ" and is also missed. Counting the concept rather than the label gives three papers with in vivo mouse data, all from one research group, plus cell work.
Who produced the evidence
Every in vivo study comes from the University of Texas Medical Branch group that discovered the molecule, and from 2022 onwards from Ridgeline Therapeutics, the company its senior author founded. The 2022 and 2024 papers declare this: the founder and current or former Ridgeline employees are authors. That is normal for early drug development and is not a criticism. It does mean there is no independent replication of anything below, and that the studies were designed to show what the compound might do for obesity, not to find what it might do wrong.
What the mouse studies observed
- 2018, the founding study. Male diet-induced obese mice received 20 mg/kg under the skin three times a day (about 34 mg/kg/day of the parent compound) for 11 days, nine per group. Body weight and white fat fell, food intake did not change, and the authors report no "overt signs of toxicity or adverse behavioral effects". The dose was chosen from an escalation in two mice, from 10 to 150 mg/kg/day; 60 mg/kg/day was "well tolerated with no observable adverse effects". The paper does not say what happened at 150.
- Cell toxicity. In the same paper, 5-amino-1MQ did not affect fat-cell viability at 10 µM but caused modest cell death at 100–300 µM and about 40% at 600 µM.
- 2022. Obese male mice switched to a low-fat diet received 32 mg/kg/day under the skin; the study measured gut bacteria and weight, not harms.
- 2024, the fullest study. Obese male mice, eight per group, received saline, 10 or 32 mg/kg/day under the skin for 30 days. Weight and fat gain were limited at the high dose, lean mass did not differ, liver fat and liver enzymes (ALT, AST) improved, and food intake did not change.
Three findings the 2024 paper reports and does not follow up
1. A swallowed dose barely arrives. The same paper measured absorption. A 30 mg/kg oral dose produced a peak plasma level of 14.5 ng/mL at about four hours. A 25 mg/kg dose under the skin peaked at 7,010 ng/mL within 15 minutes. The authors calculate oral bioavailability at 3.5% and attribute it to poor gut absorption and fast breakdown in the liver; in mouse liver cells its half-life was under seven minutes. The oral peak sits below the 78 ng/mL the paper gives as the concentration that half-inhibits the mouse enzyme. Every efficacy study injected the compound. The product most often sold is a capsule.
2. White blood cells fell. After 30 days at 32 mg/kg/day, total white blood cell count was significantly lower than in saline-treated mice, driven by lymphocytes down 31% and monocytes down 50%; monocytes were also lower at 10 mg/kg/day. The authors read this as a benefit, because obesity raises white cell counts. That may be right. It is also the kind of change a toxicology programme exists to examine, in both sexes, over months, with immune function tested rather than inferred. No such study exists.
3. It hits a second enzyme. The paper reports that, screened against a broad panel of targets, 5-amino-1MQ inhibited human MAO-A (monoamine oxidase A), and suggests this may contribute to its effect on glucose. MAO-A is the enzyme blocked by the older antidepressants. The label of one of them, NARDIL (phenelzine), warns that hypertensive crises can follow tyramine-rich foods and certain drugs. The paper gives no potency figure, so there is no way to tell whether any dose of 5-amino-1MQ inhibits MAO-A enough to matter. It is an open question that nobody has tested, which is different from a known interaction.
What nobody has looked at
No published study of 5-amino-1MQ reports any of the following:
- A standard toxicology package: repeat-dose toxicity in two species, genotoxicity, heart-rhythm and blood-pressure safety pharmacology, reproductive or developmental studies.
- Any female animal.
- Any dosing longer than about 30 days.
- Any human exposure: no first-in-human trial, no case report, no pharmacokinetics.
- Whether long-term NNMT inhibition is harmless. The same enzyme is under study in cancer: a 2021 cell study and a 2025 Italian study used NNMT inhibitors, including 5-amino-1MQ, against cervical cancer, osteosarcoma and Merkel cell carcinoma cell lines. That work concerns tumour cells, not healthy tissue, and says nothing about risk; it shows the target does more than one thing.
- What is actually in a retail capsule. No study has tested the identity, dose or purity of products sold under the name.
Where the human side-effect lists come from
Vendor pages, clinic menus and forums carry lists of human side effects and reassurances. None traces to a study of the compound in people, because none has been published. They are reports from an unverified product of unknown content, recorded here as a category of claim, not evidence. A buyer cannot tell from such a report whether the capsule contained 5-amino-1MQ or how much of it was absorbed — and on the developers' own mouse figure, very little would be.
Reading this record
"No side effects reported" is the wrong summary. The accurate one is that 5-amino-1MQ has never been given to a person under observation, that its animal record is short, all-male and produced by its developers, and that the most complete study reported a fall in white blood cells and an off-target enzyme hit without testing either further. Anyone who has taken it and has symptoms, or takes other medicines, should raise it with a doctor and say what the product was and where it came from.
The general problem with low report counts for research compounds is set out on our peptide side-effects overview. A metabolic research compound with a similarly thin and developer-produced record is on our SLU-PP-332 side-effects page, and why so little sold in capsule form has had its absorption measured is on our census of approved oral peptides and their absorption. What the molecule is and how it acts is summarised in Peptide Lexicon's 5-amino-1MQ entry.
Sources and dates
- ClinicalTrials.gov v2 API, term "5-amino-1MQ" and intervention "NNMT": 0 studies each, 2026-10-02. openFDA drug adverse-event endpoint, medicinal product "5-amino-1MQ", "5-AMINO-1MQ", "5 AMINO 1MQ" and "NNMT": no matches, 2026-10-02.
- PubMed via NCBI E-utilities: "5-amino-1MQ OR 5-amino-1-methylquinolinium OR 5A1MQ" 4 records; "nicotinamide N-methyltransferase inhibitor obesity mice" 11 records; abstracts read 2026-10-02.
- Neelakantan H et al. Selective and membrane-permeable small molecule inhibitors of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase reverse high fat diet-induced obesity in mice. Biochem Pharmacol 2018;147:141-152 (PMID 29155147; full text PMC5826726, methods and results read).
- Dimet-Wiley A et al. Reduced calorie diet combined with NNMT inhibition establishes a distinct microbiome in DIO mice. Sci Rep 2022;12:484 (PMID 35013352; full text PMC8748953, methods read).
- Babula JJ et al. Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase inhibition mitigates obesity-related metabolic dysfunction. Diabetes Obes Metab 2024;26(11):5272-5282 (PMID 39161060; full text PMC11622326, methods, results and discussion read).
- Pompei V et al. Small molecule inhibitors of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase enzyme for the treatment of osteosarcoma and Merkel cell carcinoma. Biomolecules 2025;15(11):1553 (PMID 41301471).
- NARDIL (phenelzine) label, Parke-Davis/Pfizer, NDA 011909, effective 2025-06-06, contraindications and warnings sections, via openFDA, read 2026-10-02.
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