Head to head
DSIP vs Sermorelin
A comparison decided mostly by evidence: Sermorelin has been studied in people to a degree the other has not.
Verdict
Sermorelin rests on firmer evidence
What you are actually choosing between
These sit in different classes. DSIP is a nootropic; Sermorelin is a growth hormone secretagogue. They get compared because of where they overlap, not because they are interchangeable.
The overlap is recovery and sleep. On this site's goal weighting — an editorial priority score, not a measure of effect size — DSIP rates 4/5 for recovery and sleep and Sermorelin rates 4/5. Outside that overlap only Sermorelin goes further, carrying weight for longevity and muscle growth; DSIP's declared goals stop at the overlap.
The evidence
This is the part that decides most of it. Sermorelin has approval from a regulator somewhere, though not a current FDA or EMA label — it was FDA approved as Geref, then withdrawn for commercial reasons. DSIP has some human data, but it is small, old, or uncontrolled — the controlled work is a handful of small studies from decades ago. That gap is the headline, and it is a statement about the literature rather than a promise about you: a compound with trial data can still do nothing for your case, and one without it is unproven rather than disproven.
How they differ in practice
DSIP is a subcutaneous injection and an intramuscular injection; Sermorelin is a subcutaneous injection. Both are injected, so route does not decide this one.
Sermorelin has a characterized half-life of 12 min; DSIP does not have one published here at all. That asymmetry is worth more than it looks — it usually tracks how much formal pharmacology has been done on a compound.
Committed time differs: DSIP runs 4 weeks, Sermorelin runs 12 weeks.
Risk and difficulty
The contraindication lists are not the same: Sermorelin flags active malignancy, which DSIP does not. If any of those describe you they remove a compound from consideration outright, regardless of everything above.
Sermorelin is rated beginner here and DSIP intermediate. That rating is about how much can go wrong in handling, dosing and monitoring, not about how well either works.
Source notes
What the evidence actually says
Verbatim, so you can check the verdict above against what it was built from.
DSIP (Delta Sleep-Inducing Peptide)
DSIP is a nine-amino-acid peptide isolated in the 1970s by Monnier, Schoenenberger and colleagues from the cerebral venous blood of rabbits in electrically induced delta-wave sleep, which is where the name comes from. It is not approved anywhere and has no modern development program. The human evidence is old, small and sparse, and it does not show what the name implies. The controlled work is a handful of studies from roughly 1977 to the early 1990s, mostly with a few dozen subjects at most, and the effects on sleep architecture were modest and inconsistent between groups. Some of the more repeatable findings were not in insomnia at all but in chronic pain and in opiate and alcohol withdrawal. DSIP is not a sedative and does not behave like one: it does not reliably knock anyone out, and whether an injected dose crosses the blood-brain barrier intact in meaningful quantity is still disputed. Treat any claim of a strong hypnotic effect as unsupported. On dosing, the classic human studies gave roughly 25 nmol/kg intravenously - about 1.5 mg for a 70 kg adult - which is both a different route and a much larger amount than anyone injects subcutaneously today. That figure has deliberately NOT been used to set the ceiling here. The 100-500 mcg subcutaneous range with a typical dose around 200 mcg reflects contemporary community practice, taken shortly before bed; there is no trial behind that range, and no dose-response curve exists for this route. Plasma half-life is reported in minutes, so no hourly figure is listed. The four-week cycle length is convention rather than evidence - no study has run long enough to establish a course length, and nothing is known about tolerance or long-term use.
Sermorelin
Synthetic analogue of the first 29 amino acids of GHRH. Previously approved in the US as Geref for paediatric GH deficiency and used as a diagnostic agent, then withdrawn from the market for commercial reasons. Because it works through the pituitary it preserves pulsatile GH release, but modern adult data is thin and most anti-ageing dosing is extrapolated from that older clinical use.
Side by side
The numbers
| Attribute | DSIP | Sermorelin |
|---|---|---|
| Class | Nootropic | GH secretagogue |
| Routes | Subcutaneous, Intramuscular | Subcutaneous |
| Dose range | 100 mcg–500 mcg (typical 200 mcg) | 100 mcg–1 mg (typical 300 mcg) |
| Frequency | Once daily | Once daily |
| Half-life | Not characterized | 12 min |
| Cycle length | 4 weeks | 12 weeks |
| Experience | Intermediate | Beginner |
| Evidence | Limited human data | Approved elsewhere |
| Contraindications |
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| Side effects |
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Turn a typical dose into a mark on the syringe: DSIPSermorelin
Goals
Where they overlap, and where they do not
| Goal | DSIP | Sermorelin |
|---|---|---|
| recovery and sleep | DSIP: 4/5 | Sermorelin: 4/5 |
| longevityone only | DSIP: — | Sermorelin: 3/5 |
| muscle growthone only | DSIP: — | Sermorelin: 3/5 |
| fat lossone only | DSIP: — | Sermorelin: 2/5 |
| injury repairone only | DSIP: — | Sermorelin: 2/5 |
They overlap on 1 goal and diverge on 4. Weights are this site’s editorial priority score out of 5 — how central a goal is to why people use a compound. They are not effect sizes and two 5s do not mean two equal results.
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Educational information only, not medical advice. Talk to a licensed clinician before starting, changing, or stopping anything.