Tesamorelin is a synthetic hormone that boosts your body's own growth hormone release. In two big studies with HIV patients, it cut down the dangerous belly fat that builds up around organs. However, we still don’t know how safe it is for long‑term use or whether it lowers heart disease risk, so more research is needed before it can be recommended for everyone.

HIV-associated lipodystrophy characterized by body composition changes and associated metabolic abnormalities, including dyslipidemia and insulin resistance, is a major challenge in the treatment of HIV infection. Growth hormone-releasing factor (GRF) analogs with greater stability than the natural hormone can induce growth hormone secretion in a physiological manner, and appear to be promising candidate therapies for these conditions. The most promising GRF agonist in development is tesamorelin (EMD Serono/Theratechnologies), which has exhibited efficacy for the treatment of excess visceral adipose tissue in patients with HIV infection in two recent phase III, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials. Additional long-term outcome trials are required to determine the long-term safety of tesamorelin and to evaluate whether this agent, or other GRF agonists, could reduce the cardiovascular risk associated with lipodystrophy-related metabolic complications and help to maintain a more normal distribution of body fat.