SS-31
Elamipretide
SS-31 (Elamipretide) is a longevity & bioregulators research compound. Mitochondria-targeted tetrapeptide that binds cardiolipin on the inner membrane, stabilizing cristae and restoring efficient ATP production.
SS-31 quick facts
| Reported research dosing | 2mg-5mg sometimes 10mg |
| Route | Subq |
| Cycle length | 4-8 Weeks Max of 12 weeks |
| Frequency | 1x Daily AM · 5 On 2 Off or Daily |
| Half-life | ~2-4 hrs plasma (tissue retention far longer) |
| Forms | Injectable, Nasal |
| Evidence level | Human trials (ongoing) |
The most legit mitochondrial-repair peptide in clinical development. Real science here.
How SS-31 works
Mitochondria-targeted tetrapeptide that binds cardiolipin on the inner membrane, stabilizing cristae and restoring efficient ATP production.
Proposed benefits
Mitochondrial repair and efficient ATP production (in clinical development).
✅ Clinically validated
- Real, registered human trials — and the most instructive mixed record in the Vault. Elamipretide (the drug name for SS-31) has been through multiple phase 2 and phase 3 programmes in primary mitochondrial myopathy, Barth syndrome and dry AMD.
- MMPOWER-3 in primary mitochondrial myopathy missed its primary endpoint — six-minute walk distance. What that miss means is worth being careful about. Primary mitochondrial myopathy is an umbrella over dozens of distinct genetic defects, and a walk test is a blunt instrument for a population that heterogeneous; the earlier MMPOWER-2 crossover had shown a signal on the same measure, and patient-reported fatigue moved in the direction of benefit.
- The Barth syndrome programme — a single, defined cardiolipin-remodelling defect, which is exactly what the mechanism targets — reported functional improvement and reached FDA advisory committee review. That contrast is the actual lesson: the compound did better in the population its mechanism predicts, and worse in the one that was mostly a diagnostic category.
📊 Correlative data
- Research-community use for mitochondrial and recovery goals. Reported experience is subtle — as expected for something targeting an organelle rather than a symptom.
🧪 Theoretical / extrapolated
- A tetrapeptide that concentrates in the inner mitochondrial membrane and binds cardiolipin — the phospholipid that organises the electron transport chain. Stabilising cardiolipin is proposed to improve ATP production and reduce electron leak.
- The mechanism predicts where it should work best: tissues where mitochondrial dysfunction is the actual bottleneck. That is also why the trials succeeded in a rare cardiolipin-remodelling disease and struggled in broader populations.
These tiers tell you how much human evidence exists — not how well something works. This is the research space, and most of what’s in here is new rather than disproven. Something sitting at “theoretical” usually means nobody has funded the trial, not that the trial was run and failed.
The trap runs the other way too: something can be clinically validated and still do very little for you specifically. A statistically significant result in a study population is not a promise about your body.
- ✅ Clinically validated — human randomised trials or meta-analyses support it. The strongest footing available.
- 📊 Correlative — observational or epidemiological data. Suggestive, and genuinely useful for direction, but it cannot establish cause.
- 🧪 Theoretical / mechanistic — the mechanism is understood and often demonstrated in cells or animals, and the human trial doesn’t exist yet. Unproven is not the same as ineffective. Plenty of what’s standard practice today sat here five years ago.
✗ is a safety flag, not a grade. Where you see it, the concern is harm — not a disappointing trial. A compound tested for one purpose and found not to help there can still be worth studying somewhere else, so a negative result never gets rendered as a cross. It sits alongside the tier, because something can be both well-studied and genuinely risky.
My job is to tell you which one you’re looking at, and let you make the call. Grading something low isn’t me dismissing it — it’s me refusing to oversell it. This is the research space, and being able to reason forward from a mechanism matters as much as waiting for the trial.
SS-31 — safety, predicted from mechanism
Much of this compound class has never been through a human safety trial. Rather than say nothing — or print a generic warning — this is what its known mechanism predicts could go wrong, and what you can do about it. Predictions are labelled as predictions.
What the mechanism predicts
Derived from what this molecule does, not from a trial.
- These are short peptide fragments of organ extracts, and the honest starting point is that the mechanism itself is not established in a way that lets anyone predict harm precisely. The proposal is gene-regulatory — short peptides binding DNA and modulating transcription in a tissue-specific way. If that is what they do, the theoretical concern is influencing transcription in tissue you were not aiming at.
- In practice the doses are tiny, the peptides are short, and they are degraded quickly — which is also the argument that they may do very little at all. Those two possibilities are the same uncertainty viewed from opposite ends, and you should hold both.
What has actually been reported
- Decades of Russian clinical use with a strikingly clean tolerability record — injection-site reactions and little else reported.
- That record comes almost entirely from one research school, is largely unreplicated outside it, and safety data from a group with an interest in the outcome is worth less than the same data from a sceptic. This is not an accusation; it is how evidence weighting works.
How to reduce the risk
Each of these follows from the same mechanism as the prediction.
- Follow the course printed on the label rather than running continuously. These are the one class in the Vault where a duration is STATED rather than inferred, and it is typically 10–20 days repeated a few times a year. Read the box.
- Run one at a time. They are cheap and it is tempting to stack six. If something changes, a stack of six tells you nothing about which one did it — and given the evidence base, attribution is the entire value of your own experiment.
- Decide your endpoint before you start, and make it a marker or a measurable symptom rather than a feeling. With a compound class this under-evidenced, an unfalsifiable endpoint means you will conclude it worked no matter what happened.
- Buy from a source that publishes third-party testing. Where the molecule itself is uncertain, identity and purity are the only variables you can actually control.
What it does to your bloodwork
A fact about the assay, not a guess about the drug.
- Test the ORGAN, not the peptide. A thymic peptide is judged on immune markers, a pineal one on sleep and IGF-1, a vascular one on lipids and inflammatory markers. There is no assay for the compound itself.
Don't run this if
- Pregnancy — not because of a specific finding, but because nobody has studied it and the mechanism claim is transcriptional.
- Active malignancy, on the same reasoning as any tissue-growth signal: unproven, mechanistically arguable, and not worth finding out.
The honest unknown
- Essentially everything a sceptic would want: independent replication, pharmacokinetics, and whether the oral forms survive digestion at all. Unproven is not the same as ineffective — but here it is a large unproven.
Not medical advice. If you take prescription medication or have a diagnosed condition, check this with a pharmacist or doctor.
Close to the tissue, and consistency beats the clock
A brief exposure starts a process that runs for days, so the hour you dose is a minor variable — missing days is the one that costs you. Where the target is local, dosing near the site is worth more than any timing choice.
Derived from half-life, route and mechanism — not from a dosing trial. Reasoned, and labelled as reasoned.
SS-31 reconstitution calculator
Research reconstitution calculator
Where to get SS-31
Buy SS-31 at AminoWell USA →SS-31 — interference & stacking
Predicted from mechanism, not from an interaction study. There are no trials of these combinations — what follows is what the biology implies, so treat it as a reason to watch something, not as a finding.
What SS-31 moves on your bloodwork
These are the markers this compound is expected to move, and which direction. Knowing that in advance is mostly about NOT panicking: some of these moving is the compound working.
- hs-CRP (High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein) — ↓ expected to fall
Where these work, systemic inflammation is the plausible readout.
What to do: hs-CRP is cheap and moves. Baseline and 12 weeks. - HbA1c (Hemoglobin A1c) — ↓ expected to fall
Improved mitochondrial and metabolic function should show here if the effect is real at all.
What to do: The honest use of these markers is as a falsification test: if nothing moves in 12 weeks, the compound is not doing much for you. - Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP) — ◆ worth watching
Liver and kidney function — the standard baseline for anything run long term.
What to do: Twice a year is enough on a stable protocol.
- Which compounds push the same lever, and why the dose adds up faster than people count
- What blunts it — the stacks that waste your money
- What compounds the risk, so a side effect arrives sooner than any one of them suggests
- Coach Cam's read on running it alongside the rest of your protocol
Get the complete breakdown for SS-31 — inside the Academy alongside the full interactive Vault.
Unlock in the Academy — $10/mo →This class is where honest expectation-setting matters most: the markers above are how you find out whether anything happened, and for most of these compounds that question is genuinely open.
Bloodwork to run alongside SS-31
Run these before you start, and again after 8–12 weeks. A baseline you didn’t take is one you can never go back for.
| Marker | What it’s watching for |
|---|---|
| hs-CRP (High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein) | Inflammation, the readout most mitochondrial claims rest on |
| Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP) | Kidney especially — most human SS-31 trial work is renal and cardiac |
| HbA1c (Hemoglobin A1c) | Metabolic function |
| Carnitine, Total and Free | Mitochondrial fuel handling |
The Longevity Baseline panel covers these in one order — 13 markers, $219.10 with the discount applied.
Check results you already have → · All 102 markers A–Z
SS-31 — frequently asked questions
What is SS-31?
SS-31 (Elamipretide) is a longevity & bioregulators research compound. Mitochondria-targeted tetrapeptide that binds cardiolipin on the inner membrane, stabilizing cristae and restoring efficient ATP production.
What dosing does the research reference for SS-31?
In the research literature, SS-31 is referenced in the 2mg-5mg sometimes 10mg range, 1x Daily AM · 5 On 2 Off or Daily. It is supplied as a lyophilized powder and reconstituted with bacteriostatic water; the calculator above converts a research amount into syringe units. For research use only — not a recommendation for human use.
What is the half-life of SS-31?
SS-31 has an approximate half-life of ~2-4 hrs plasma (tissue retention far longer), which is part of what determines how often it's dosed.
What forms does SS-31 come in?
SS-31 is available as: Injectable, Nasal.
What's the evidence behind SS-31?
Current evidence level: Human trials (ongoing). SS-31 is offered for research purposes only and is not an approved medicine.
Want Coach Cam's exact SS-31 protocol?
Dosing schedules, stacking, cycle timing and my personal notes live inside the Academy — plus the full interactive Vault of 237 compounds & 350 supplements.
Join the Academy — $10/mo →What SS-31 is used for
SS-31 appears under 5 goals in the Vault’s goal router, grouped by the mechanism it works through rather than by how much trial evidence exists. Each link opens that pathway in full, with the alternatives beside it and the bloodwork that tests it.