What DSIP is, what each human sleep study actually reported, onset, half-life and side effects — reported examples for educational use only, not medical advice.
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Foundational Guide: Available Now
Educational use only — not medical advice. This guide summarizes information reported in published research and community practice for educational purposes. It is not medical advice and not a recommendation to use any compound. Any doses, schedules, or combinations shown are examples of what has been reported, not instructions for you. Many peptides described here are research compounds that are not FDA-approved for the uses discussed and may be investigational or restricted. Effects, risks, and legal status vary; individual needs and results vary. Consult a qualified, licensed healthcare professional before making any decision. Do not use this content to diagnose, treat, or dose yourself.
DSIP at a glance
What it is
DSIP (Trp-Ala-Gly-Gly-Asp-Ala-Ser-Gly-Glu) — a nonapeptide first isolated in the 1970s from the cerebral venous blood of rabbits in induced sleep, and named for that observation rather than for a confirmed mechanism.
Researched for
Sleep onset and quality in chronic insomnia; also studied as an opioid-withdrawal adjunct and, once, as an anaesthesia adjunct.
Mechanism
Unknown. No receptor, gene or precursor protein for DSIP has been formally identified in five decades of study.
Plasma half-life
Reported at roughly 7-15 minutes in early intravenous human work — very short, and a poor match for a compound expected to act across a night.
Regulatory status
Not FDA-approved for any use, and never brought through a modern registration programme anywhere. Research/educational use only.
Educational reference. This page does not publish dose ranges or reconstitution arithmetic.
What it is / mechanism
The honest position on DSIP's mechanism is that after five decades there isn't one. No receptor has been cloned, no gene encoding it has been identified, and no precursor protein has been characterised — a state of affairs summarised in Kovalzon and Strekalova's 2006 review, which called the peptide a still unresolved riddle and remains the standard reference for exactly that reason. For a molecule discovered in the 1970s and studied intermittently ever since, that is a striking absence, and it is the single most important thing to understand about it.
The discovery itself explains both the name and the ambiguity. Schoenenberger and Monnier's group induced sleep in rabbits by electrical stimulation of the thalamus, collected cerebral venous blood, and isolated a nonapeptide fraction that appeared to transfer the sleep effect to recipient animals. The compound was named for the observation — a factor from the blood of sleeping animals that induced delta-wave sleep — not for any understanding of how it worked. Naming a molecule after an assay result is normal at the discovery stage; what is unusual is that half a century later the name is still the main claim.
Several mechanistic proposals have circulated without being established: modulation of GABAergic transmission, interaction with opioid systems, effects on somatostatin and corticotropin release, and a general role as a neuromodulator rather than a classical ligand. None has produced a receptor. A related complication is that much of the older literature measured 'DSIP-like immunoreactivity' in tissue and plasma using antibodies whose specificity was never firmly established, so a body of work describing where DSIP is found may partly be describing something else.
What can be said is that the peptide is small, unstable in circulation, and crosses into brain tissue poorly compared with compounds designed for the purpose. Any account of how a subcutaneous administration would produce a sleep effect hours later has to bridge those facts, and none of the available accounts does.
Researched effects
The reported human effects come from a small cluster of trials, nearly all published between 1981 and 1992, and reading them in sequence is more informative than any summary of them.
The first human work came from Schneider-Helmert and colleagues. A 1981 study in six normal volunteers used a double-blind crossover design (Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther Toxicol; PMID 6895513), and a companion 1981 report in six chronic insomniacs used acute intravenous administration at 25 nmol/kg, describing longer sleep duration and higher subjective sleep quality (Experientia; PMID 7028502). A brief Lancet report the same year (PMID 6112579) put the insomnia finding in front of a clinical audience. Monti and colleagues followed in 1987 with a polysomnographic study reporting increased total sleep and NREM sleep (Int J Clin Pharmacol Res; PMID 3583493), and Schneider-Helmert reported on intermediate-term effects on 24-hour sleep-wake behaviour the same year (Eur Neurol; PMID 3622582). The most substantial later trial is Bes et al. 1992, a double-blind study in 16 chronic insomniacs (Neuropsychobiology; PMID 1299794).
Outside sleep, two applications were tested. Backmund et al. 1998 examined DSIP in opioid detoxification (J Clin Psychopharmacol; PMID 9617990), and Pomfrett et al. 2009 looked at it as an anaesthesia adjunct (Eur J Anaesthesiol; PMID 19142086) — the only study in the group from the past twenty-five years.
Three features of that record matter more than the individual results. The trials are small, typically six to sixteen participants. They cluster around a single research tradition, so the finding has not been reproduced independently at scale. And the sleep literature effectively stops in the early 1990s — not because the question was settled, but because the field moved on without resolving it. A compound with a genuine, reproducible hypnotic effect and no receptor to patent would still have attracted follow-up; the silence is itself evidence about effect size.
Evidence & regulatory status
Evidence: weak and contested, and the word contested is doing real work — the published human studies do not straightforwardly agree, and the ones reporting benefit are small, mostly from one research group, and almost all more than thirty years old.
The human sleep trials: Schneider-Helmert et al. 1981 in six normal volunteers, double-blind crossover (PMID 6895513); Schneider-Helmert & Schoenenberger 1981, acute IV 25 nmol/kg in six chronic insomniacs (PMID 7028502) with a companion Lancet report (PMID 6112579); Monti et al. 1987, polysomnography showing increased total and NREM sleep (PMID 3583493); Schneider-Helmert 1987 on 24-hour sleep-wake behaviour (PMID 3622582); Bes et al. 1992, double-blind in 16 chronic insomniacs (PMID 1299794).
Other applications tested: opioid detoxification (Backmund et al. 1998, PMID 9617990) and anaesthesia adjunct (Pomfrett et al. 2009, PMID 19142086) — the latter being the only study in this set from the last quarter-century.
No receptor, gene or precursor protein has ever been formally identified, as reviewed by Kovalzon & Strekalova (Journal of Neurochemistry, 2006). Much older tissue-distribution work relied on 'DSIP-like immunoreactivity' assays of uncertain specificity.
Route mismatch: every published human trial administered DSIP intravenously. No trial has tested the subcutaneous, before-bed pattern that community sources describe.
Regulatory: not FDA-approved, and never taken through a modern registration programme in any jurisdiction. The clinical literature stopped well before current trial standards applied.
Research timeline
Dated milestones taken from the primary records: the molecule's discovery, its first registered human study, the trials that shaped the evidence and the regulatory decisions. Each entry links to the record it comes from.
Guido Schoenenberger and Marcel Monnier isolate from rabbits a nine-amino-acid peptide that increased slow-wave (delta) brain activity when infused into the brain, name it delta-sleep-inducing peptide and publish its sequence. PMID 265572
The first study of synthetic DSIP in people, by its authors' account: six healthy volunteers in a double-blind crossover slept more in the two hours after a morning intravenous infusion than after placebo, without signs of classic sedation. PMID 6895513
A double-blind, placebo-controlled study in 16 people with chronic insomnia finds only weak effects, partly explained by a change in the placebo group, and concludes that short-term DSIP is not likely to be of major therapeutic benefit. PMID 1299794
FDA's page on compounding safety risks, as updated on this date, lists emideltide (DSIP) among substances that had been in Category 2 and whose nominations were withdrawn, stating that FDA found no safety information for the proposed route. FDA · compounding safety risks, Apr 22, 2026
Emideltide (DSIP) goes before FDA's Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee for the pharmacy-compounding (503A) list, evaluated for opioid withdrawal, chronic insomnia and narcolepsy; FDA's briefing document concludes that the balance of criteria weighs against listing it. No minutes or vote were posted by 4 Oct 2026. FDA · PCAC briefing document, Jul 23–24, 2026
Records checked Oct 4, 2026
Claims at a glance
The claims most often made about this compound, each with the strongest kind of evidence we found for it. The grade says what was studied, not whether the claim is true; the line beside it says what that study showed.
Improves sleep in insomniaHuman, non-randomised. Two placebo-controlled sleep-lab trials run outside the discovering group found weak or no differences from placebo; both judged it of little clinical benefit. PMID 1299794
Increases deep (delta) sleepHuman, randomised trial. In a randomised study under anaesthesia it reduced delta rhythm; in a placebo-controlled insomnia trial deep sleep did not change and only light sleep rose. PMID 19142086
Raises growth hormoneHuman, non-randomised. In eight healthy women it changed growth hormone neither at rest, nor overnight, nor after an arginine stimulation test; the positive results are in rats. PMID 8475226
Lowers cortisol and stress hormonesHuman, randomised trial. In a randomised double-blind crossover in eleven healthy men, ACTH fell but cortisol in blood and urine did not change. PMID 2554357
Relieves chronic painHuman, non-randomised. One 1984 pilot in seven patients with four different conditions compared pain with their own recalled history, with no placebo group. PMID 6548970
Eases alcohol and opioid withdrawalHuman, non-randomised. An uncontrolled 1983 series of 67 patients, 27% of them lost or not evaluable, reported benefit with no comparison group. PMID 6328354
Extends lifespanAnimal studies only. In mice given a DSIP preparation for life, mean lifespan did not change; only the longest-lived tenth and the maximum lifespan rose. PMID 12782416
The reasoning behind each grade, study by study, is in this guide's Benefit & Outcome Review.
Grades checked Oct 5, 2026
A printable reference sheet with the compound's key facts, storage guidance and a vial record comes with All-Access Lifetime.
Half-life & pharmacokinetics
Early intravenous human work reported a plasma half-life on the order of 7-15 minutes, with in vitro degradation studies describing a similar few-minute range. Either figure makes DSIP one of the shorter-lived compounds discussed in this library.
That number deserves more attention than it usually gets, because it sits awkwardly against what the compound is expected to do. A substance cleared within roughly a quarter of an hour is not present in circulation for the seven or eight hours of a night's sleep. Any account of a night-long effect therefore requires something other than sustained blood levels — a trigger effect on a sleep-initiating process, a metabolite, or an action at a site the peptide reaches briefly and influences durably. None of those has been demonstrated, and the absence of a known receptor makes each of them difficult to test.
The alternative reading is that the reported effects are small, largely subjective, and concentrated at sleep onset rather than across the night, which would be consistent with both the pharmacokinetics and the modest and inconsistent trial results. This page cannot settle which reading is right. It can point out that the half-life is a fact the enthusiastic accounts of this compound generally do not engage with.
Reported side effects & toxicology
The limited early human trials reported only transient effects — headache, nausea and vertigo appear in the reports — and animal studies described the peptide as having low toxicity even at multiples of the doses used. On its face that is a reassuring record.
It should be read with its limits in view. The total number of people who have received DSIP in a published trial is small, in the low dozens across the whole literature. The administrations were intravenous, supervised and short-course. Nothing in that record speaks to repeated subcutaneous use over weeks or months, which is the pattern discussed outside the literature, and a compound with no identified receptor is also a compound whose off-target profile cannot be reasoned about from mechanism. Absence of reported harm in a handful of small, old studies is not the same as an established safety profile.
Storage & handling
Lyophilized (unmixed): store cold; long-term typically -20 C / freezer; stable refrigerated short-term.
Reconstituted: refrigerate (~2-8 C); commonly reported usable window ~2-4 weeks; keep away from light; do not freeze once mixed.
References
Sourced from Kovalzon & Strekalova, 'Delta sleep-inducing peptide: a still unresolved riddle,' Journal of Neurochemistry (2006); the human sleep trials of Schneider-Helmert et al. 1981 (PMID 6895513), Schneider-Helmert & Schoenenberger 1981 (PMID 7028502; Lancet report PMID 6112579), Monti et al. 1987 (PMID 3583493), Schneider-Helmert 1987 (PMID 3622582) and Bes et al. 1992 (PMID 1299794); Backmund et al. 1998 on opioid detoxification (PMID 9617990); and Pomfrett et al. 2009 on anaesthesia (PMID 19142086).
Evidence File
The DSIP Evidence File
The free guide reads eight human papers and calls the evidence weak and contested. This module rebuilds the human record from live PubMed searching and finds it far larger than eight papers, spanning indications the free guide does not cover and running later than the free guide says it does. It names every registry query behind the absence claim so the check can be repeated, traces five widely quoted DSIP figures back to the sentence each came from, and sets the published protocols beside the community one parameter by parameter. Several of the corrections run against the compound and several run in its favour.
19 further human records located, none of them on the free page
16 registry queries, including under the INN, all returning zero
1 modern human study instrumented a brain while DSIP circulated
5 circulating figures traced to the sentence each came from
The Human Record Is Much Larger Than Eight Papers
The One Modern Human Recording, and Which Way Delta Went
The Arousal Thread, Written By the Originators Themselves
Three Placebo-Controlled Sleep Trials, and the Split Runs by Authorship
A Registry With Nothing In It, Under Any Name Including the INN
Where the Half-Life Number Comes From, and What It Is Actually Measuring
Four More Circulating Figures, Traced to the Sentence Each Came From
Trial Protocol Versus Community Protocol: Four Gaps, Itemised
8 more sections in the Evidence File for DSIP
Unlock the Evidence File, Sourcing File and Benefit & Outcome Review for DSIP for $14 — or every compound in the library, plus the printable reference sheets, for $99.
The sections above this one stay free to read without an account.
Sourcing File
The DSIP Sourcing File
Generic peptide certificate advice does not fit this molecule, and following it produces a confident reading of a document that has not answered the question. DSIP has one basic residue and three acidic ones, which changes the mass spectrum, the counterion arithmetic, the solubility behaviour and the tests that are worth requiring. It also has exactly one aromatic residue, and the consequence of that fact for the commonest purity assay is the most important sourcing point in this file. The module ends with a constructed certificate read line by line.
1 chromophore, and the named major degradant does not have it
15 mDa separates a synthesis fault from a storage fault
1 basic site caps the TFA burden near 11.8 percent by mass
848.8, 848.33 and 849.34 all belong on a certificate, differently
The Identity Block, and the Numbers Near 848
One Basic Residue: What That Changes About the Spectrum, the Salt and the Solvent
Purity Is Not Peptide Content, and For This Compound the Gap Is Computable
The 280 nm Blind Spot, Which Is the Most Consequential Line on the Certificate
The 662 Isobar, the Phosphate, and the Impurity No Mass Spectrum Can See
What a DSIP Certificate Should Show, and What Is Genuinely Not Applicable
A Constructed Certificate, Read Line by Line
7 more sections in the Sourcing File for DSIP
Unlock the Evidence File, Sourcing File and Benefit & Outcome Review for DSIP for $14 — or every compound in the library, plus the printable reference sheets, for $99.
The sections above this one stay free to read without an account.
Benefit & Outcome Review
The DSIP Benefit and Outcome Review
Eleven claims circulate commercially for this peptide and each is taken here on its own terms. For every one the review states the species the measurement was made in, the design that produced it, what the comparator was, whether an effect size exists at all, and what the authors themselves concluded. Human, animal and in-vitro results are kept in separate blocks and never merged into a single verdict sentence. Several claims turn out to have been tested directly rather than merely left unstudied, and the distinction between untested and tested-and-failed changes what each grade can honestly say.
11 claims graded; 1 tested in humans against a positive control
3 placebo-controlled sleep trials, and the split runs by authorship
0 of 4 community protocol parameters have a published basis
107 and 67 patient withdrawal series, no control group in either
The Scoreboard: Eleven Claims and How They Were Graded
Sleep in Insomnia: The Split Runs by Authorship
Delta Sleep and the No-Sedation Claim: One Finding With Two Faces
Growth Hormone: Real in the Rat, Absent in the Human Test
Cortisol and the Stress Axis: Three Groups, Two Answers, and the Wrong Endpoint
Pain and Withdrawal: The Most Human Exposure and the Weakest Designs
Lifespan, Antioxidant and Cardiac Claims: Where the Species Part Company
The Community Protocol and the Safety Record, Parameter by Parameter
8 more sections in the Benefit & Outcome Review for DSIP
Unlock the Evidence File, Sourcing File and Benefit & Outcome Review for DSIP for $14 — or every compound in the library, plus the printable reference sheets, for $99.
Quick answers about guide scope, access, and educational use context.
Does DSIP actually help you sleep?
The human evidence is weak and contested. A small cluster of trials between 1981 and 1992 — six to sixteen participants each, nearly all intravenous, largely from one research group — reported longer sleep duration, better subjective quality and, in Monti et al. 1987, increased total and NREM sleep on polysomnography. Those are real published findings, but they are small, old, not independently reproduced at scale, and the field stopped investigating in the early 1990s without resolving the question. Treat it as unsettled rather than established.
What DSIP dose did the published trials use?
The published trials used about 25 nmol/kg intravenously, which at DSIP's molecular weight is roughly 21 mcg/kg, or on the order of 1.5 mg for a 70 kg adult. The subcutaneous bedtime amounts quoted in community sources differ from that in size, route and setting and are not scaled from the trial protocol, so this page does not reproduce them. This describes published research, not a recommendation.
How much DSIP should I inject?
This guide does not recommend an amount, and there is no established dose to report — DSIP has never been through a modern registration programme, so no regulator has ever set one.
How do you reconstitute DSIP?
Add bacteriostatic water slowly down the inside wall of the vial and swirl gently until the powder dissolves — do not shake.
What is DSIP's half-life?
Roughly 7-15 minutes by early intravenous human measurements, with in vitro work in a similar range. That is short enough to be worth thinking about: a compound cleared within about a quarter of an hour is not present in the blood across a night's sleep, so any night-long effect would have to work through something other than sustained blood levels. No such mechanism has been demonstrated.
Does DSIP have a receptor?
No. After five decades no receptor, gene or precursor protein for DSIP has been formally identified — the position summarised in Kovalzon & Strekalova's 2006 review, which described the peptide as a still unresolved riddle. Some older tissue work measured 'DSIP-like immunoreactivity' with antibodies of uncertain specificity, so even the question of where DSIP is found in the body is less settled than it appears.
How long does DSIP take to work?
Community reports describe administering it 30-60 minutes before bed, which is a habit rather than a finding — no published study has established an onset time for the subcutaneous route, because no published study has used it. The trials were intravenous, where the peptide enters circulation immediately and is cleared within minutes.
Is DSIP FDA-approved?
No. DSIP is not approved for any use in the United States and has never been taken through a modern registration programme in any jurisdiction. The clinical literature largely predates current trial standards, and the last published human study of any kind was in 2009.
Is DSIP the same as a sleeping pill?
No, and the comparison is instructive. Licensed hypnotics have identified molecular targets, characterised pharmacokinetics matched to a night's duration, and large controlled trials behind their labelling. DSIP has none of those: no known receptor, a half-life of minutes, and a total published human exposure in the low dozens of participants. Whatever it is, it is not a studied sleep medication.
Does Medibact sell DSIP?
No. Medibact publishes this educational DSIP guide and supplies the USP-grade bacteriostatic water used to reconstitute lyophilized peptides, made at an FDA-registered U.S. facility. It does not sell the peptide itself.
Compliance and trust notes
Educational content only; no personalized health or outcome claims.
No personalized use recommendation outputs.
Use this material for general learning and research-context literacy.
A certificate of analysis (COA) is a laboratory’s report on one sample of one batch. The single most useful thing to know about it is that purity and identity are two separate results that fail in different ways. A high purity figure says the sample was mostly one substance; it does not say that substance was DSIP. Identity — normally a mass-spectrometry result matching the expected molecular weight — is what establishes what the material actually is, and a certificate reporting purity alone has not answered that question.
Two further limits are worth holding onto. Mass per vial is its own test: a vial can be 99% pure and still contain less material than the label claims. And sterility, endotoxin, heavy metals and residual solvent screening are separately commissioned tests, usually priced individually — so a “third-party tested” badge asserts none of them unless the certificate names them. Check that the batch or lot number on the document matches the vial in front of you; an unmatched certificate describes someone else’s material.
Medibact does not test, endorse or resell peptides, and publishes no rating of any laboratory. How to read a peptide certificate of analysis walks through the document section by section, and what each COA field establishes covers the field-by-field detail and the laboratories that publish their methods.
You’ll need bacteriostatic water
The diluent for reconstituting DSIP
Reconstitution is volume arithmetic — it assumes a lyophilized vial is dissolved in bacteriostatic water, which is sterile water preserved with 0.9% benzyl alcohol. The preservative is what allows a vial to be entered more than once; plain sterile water carries none and is single-entry by design. Medibact supplies USP-grade Bacteriostatic Water for Injection in a 30 mL multi-dose vial, produced in an FDA-registered U.S. facility and shipped from the United States, for research use only. One 30 mL vial covers 30 reconstitutions at 1 mL each, 15 at 2 mL, or 10 at 3 mL — division only, not a dosing recommendation.
Educational use only — not medical advice. This guide summarizes information reported in published research and community practice for educational purposes. It is not medical advice and not a recommendation to use any compound. Any doses, schedules, or combinations shown are examples of what has been reported, not instructions for you. Many peptides described here are research compounds that are not FDA-approved for the uses discussed and may be investigational or restricted. Effects, risks, and legal status vary; individual needs and results vary. Consult a qualified, licensed healthcare professional before making any decision. Do not use this content to diagnose, treat, or dose yourself.
