DSIP
Rest, the way your body remembers it.
Vial content, not a dose.
DSIP — Delta Sleep-Inducing Peptide — is a nonapeptide: a chain of nine amino acids, sequence Trp-Ala-Gly-Gly-Asp-Ala-Ser-Gly-Glu. It was first isolated in 1977 from the cerebral venous blood of sleeping rabbits, and named for the state it was found in rather than for anything understood about how it worked. That remains largely true. Since then it has been studied for slow-wave sleep promotion, for stress and cortisol buffering, and, in earlier work, for analgesic and anticonvulsant activity — with results that are mixed and often small.
Sleep is not something the body needs to be taught. The architecture is written — the descent into slow-wave depth, the overnight repair that depends on it. What changes with hormonal shift is how reliably it runs. DSIP was found inside the body, not designed for it: isolated from the blood of sleeping animals. That places it closer to a reminder than an override. Whether it delivers is still open.
How the signal travels.
DSIP is unusual on this site: the signal it acts on has never been pinned down. Nearly fifty years after isolation, no receptor has been assigned to it, and the proposed pathways remain candidates.
No DSIP receptor has been identified. The peptide was named for the state it was found in, not for a binding site anyone has since confirmed.
One proposed route is modulation of adrenergic signaling — the arousal-side chemistry that keeps the nervous system alert, and can hold it there when rest should be taking over.
A second proposal involves GABAergic tone — the inhibitory signaling that quiets neural activity as the brain moves out of wakefulness and down into slow-wave sleep.
What researchers measure is the output: slow-wave sleep, and markers of stress and cortisol buffering. The observation came first, and the pathway explaining it has not yet followed.
What it's used to support.
For women 35+ whose sleep has thinned — waking earlier, surfacing more often, spending less of the night in the deep stage that used to arrive on its own. DSIP sits at the exploratory end of this catalog, so it suits someone who wants to understand what is known and what isn't before deciding, and who is addressing sleep as part of a broader hormonal picture.
The figures above are the amount of lyophilized peptide in the vial — they are not a dose. Your protocol, timing, and duration are set one-to-one with a licensed practitioner based on your history and goals.
The specifics, if you want them.
Technical specifications
Where the research stands
Human evidence is minimal. Most of what exists is animal work plus small, older human studies — one double-blind trial in adults with chronic insomnia reported better sleep continuity than placebo, and other work has not consistently agreed. Pharmaceutical development stalled: the mechanism stayed unclear and the observed effects were small. We list DSIP as emerging research because that is what it is.
Storage & handling
Before you start.
We don't publish a route, dose, or schedule for DSIP. There is no standardized human protocol to point to, and even where one existed we would confirm it individually. Administration is decided during consultation with a licensed practitioner who can weigh it against your history, your sleep pattern, and anything else already in your plan.
We leave that unanswered here, deliberately. The human studies are small and their findings inconsistent, so any timeline published here would be invention rather than evidence. What we'd suggest instead is deciding with your practitioner what you are actually tracking — how long you sleep, how often you wake, how you feel by mid-afternoon — and reviewing it honestly.
Yes, and more so here than elsewhere in the catalog. DSIP has thin human data behind it, which makes individual judgment more important, not less. A licensed practitioner can review your health history, look at what else may be disturbing your sleep, and tell you whether this belongs in your plan at all.
Because the honest answer is more useful than a confident one. DSIP has been studied for close to fifty years and still has no assigned receptor. We list it as emerging research, describe what the evidence does and does not show, and leave the decision where it belongs — with you and your practitioner.
It describes the total amount of peptide contained in the vial as supplied. It is not a dose, not a daily amount, and not a recommendation. What is used, if anything, is a separate decision made with a licensed practitioner during consultation, and it bears no fixed relationship to the vial's contents.
Every Inner Peptides formula is independently tested before it ships, with a Certificate of Analysis available on request. Learn more about our testing standard.
