Peptides, SARMs, and Research Chemicals: HMTc Program Manual

Scope and method

This manual states how Category 26 peptides, SARMs, and research chemicals are certified for metal safety. It does not certify efficacy, legality, or approval status. Seven metals (lead, cadmium, total arsenic, total mercury, nickel, tin, and total chromium) are read across from the ICH Q3D elemental-impurity limits. Aluminium uses the FDA injectable limit (25) on the injectable and nasal standards and the EU drinking-water limit (200) on raw powders and oral SARMs. Inorganic arsenic, methylmercury, and hexavalent chromium are capped at their parent totals and tested on every lot. Every figure in the matrix is read from the live standard record. Nothing in this manual invents a ceiling.

Method: government-limit default (Method v2.0). Why Method v1 was retired is on the method page. The five live standards remain the derivation of each cell. Injectable anabolic-androgenic steroids, injectable peptide hormones, and nasal or sublingual preparations take the parenteral ICH Q3D concentrations, with aluminium at the FDA injectable limit. Raw powders and oral SARMs take the oral ICH Q3D concentrations, with aluminium at the EU drinking-water limit. A product is certified only at or below 100% of every published ceiling. The v1 PDF carries the program rules and the standards register, including each house DOI.

Master limit matrix

All values are ppb (µg/kg), as sold. Click any subcategory for its derivation. A dash is a species capped at its parent total (inorganic arsenic at total arsenic, methylmercury at total mercury, hexavalent chromium at total chromium) and tested on every lot. It is not an empty cell and not an invented number.

Subcategory	Pb	Cd	tAs	iAs	Hg	MeHg	Ni	Sn	Al	Cr	Cr-VI	Basis
Injectable anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS)	500	200	1500	—	300	—	2000	60000	25	110000	—	as sold
Injectable peptide hormones (GLP-1 analogs, GH secretagogues, synthetic peptides)	500	200	1500	—	300	—	2000	60000	25	110000	—	as sold
Nasal/sublingual/troche peptide preparations (mucosal route)	500	200	1500	—	300	—	2000	60000	25	110000	—	as sold
Raw AAS / peptide powders (pre-formulation)	500	500	1500	—	3000	—	20000	600000	200	1100000	—	as sold
Oral SARMs	500	500	1500	—	3000	—	20000	600000	200	1100000	—	as sold

Every claim analyte is equal at the gate. A product is certified only when every published limit is met at or below 100% of its government floor or disclosed read-across. An exceedance on any metal enters Remediation and carries no mark.

Risk Flag

Published market surveys for this category are not keyed to these five standard records in the occurrence corpus this section scores, so no median-to-limit ratio is computed here. Certification is decided on the product's own tested lot against the published read-across ceiling. The limit is that ceiling (Method v2.1), not a percentile of market data. An individual lot can still exceed a limit.

See the cross-category summary of the ingredients that most often struggle, and the Category 26 briefing.

About this edition

Standards are living, versioned documents; each subcategory page carries its own version history and dated change log. This is the current web edition. The Manual v1 PDF is downloadable from the rail. Its program text and standards register match this page. The live subcategory pages remain the derivation of each cell. The manual DOI is not deposited yet.

The literature baseline underlying these certification limits is maintained independently at the Heavy Metal Index. This certification standard applies those findings; the two are kept editorially separate by design.

Version history

The dated editions of this manual. Each is kept at a stable permalink, so a regulator or brand can reconstruct exactly what the manual required on any date: the edition record, not an editorial commit trail. Version-pinned DOIs link here once each edition is deposited.

Version	Date	Status	DOI	What changed
Manual v1	2026-10-12	current	not yet deposited	First Category 26 Program Manual. Five standards, ICH Q3D read-across for seven metals, FDA injectable aluminium (25) on injectable and nasal standards, EU drinking-water aluminium (200) on raw powders and oral SARMs. Species capped at the parent total and tested on every lot. Metal safety only.