Peptides, energy and longevity
Cellular energy and biological ageing turn out to be the same conversation from two directions. Most of the compounds here are studied for what they do inside the mitochondrion, which is where both questions end up.
It all comes back to the mitochondrion
Mitochondria generate most of the cell’s usable energy, and they degrade in characteristic ways over time. That single fact is why a research area about energy and a research area about ageing keep converging on the same organelle and often the same molecules.
Three lines of work sit here. One concerns a coenzyme central to redox reactions, whose cellular levels change with age. Another concerns a peptide encoded in mitochondrial rather than nuclear DNA, which was only described relatively recently. A third concerns a short peptide studied for its interaction with a lipid specific to the inner mitochondrial membrane.
Two of those three are young fields with correspondingly thin literatures, and the compound pages say so rather than implying more certainty than exists.
What is being investigated- Redox balance and coenzyme availability
- Peptides encoded in mitochondrial DNA
- Cardiolipin interaction at the inner membrane
- Which of these fields are genuinely young
Where this sits legally
SS-31 has been through clinical programmes under the name elamipretide. That is a different product from the research material here, with a different dossier behind it.
Compounds studied here
Six items spanning coenzymes, mitochondrial peptides and one enzyme inhibitor.
What this page leaves out
No promises about ageing, and no implication that a young field is a settled one. Two of the three research threads on this page are only a few years old, and the compound files say so in the first paragraph rather than the last. Nothing here describes an outcome in a person.
Read before you order
Four files, two of them describing fields only a few years old.
NAD+
Not a peptide at all but a coenzyme, and what it actually does in cellular metabolism.
Read CompoundMOTS-c
Encoded in mitochondrial rather than nuclear DNA. Interesting, and still thinly published.
Read CompoundSS-31
Also catalogued as elamipretide, studied for its interaction with cardiolipin.
Read CompoundEpitalon
A four-residue peptide from longevity research, with an honest look at how thin the evidence is.
ReadQuestions about this area
Usually about what counts as a peptide and what does not.
Is NAD+ a peptide?
Why do energy and longevity share a page?
How established is the MOTS-c research?
Why is 5-Amino-1MQ listed here rather than under weight?
Is there a difference between the NAD+ pen and the spray?
Young fields, described as such
Several of the compounds on this page sit in literatures only a few years old. We say that on the pages themselves rather than letting the catalogue imply otherwise.
For laboratory and research use only. Not for human or animal consumption. Not a medicine and not a food supplement. Sold to persons aged 18 and over. Compounds named on this page may appear on the WADA prohibited list.





