Run for longevity
Advanced Mitochondrial (MOTS-c + SS-31)
advanced8 weeksThe two most talked-about mitochondrial peptides run together: MOTS-c, a mitochondrially encoded peptide that activates AMPK, and SS-31 (elamipretide), a tetrapeptide that binds cardiolipin on the inner mitochondrial membrane. Two different points of attack on the same organelle, which is the whole rationale. Graded advanced because both are thin on human data and because nothing you can measure will tell you whether it worked.
Also sold as MOTS-c + SS-31, MOTS-c + elamipretide, Mito stack, Mitochondrial longevity stack.
Cautions — 8 on record
Read before running any of this
- Two compounds with essentially no human efficacy data in healthy adults do not add uncertainty, they multiply it. If you feel better you cannot attribute it, if you feel worse you cannot attribute that either, and with an eight-week block and two variables you get no usable information out of the cycle. Running one at a time is genuinely more informative here, not just more cautious.
- There is no accessible biomarker that tells you whether this is doing anything. Nothing on a standard panel tracks mitochondrial function in a way that would confirm or refute an effect, so you are dosing blind for two months and judging by feel - which is precisely the situation in which people convince themselves an expensive stack is working.
- SS-31 injection site reactions - redness, itching and induration - are the dominant adverse effect reported in the actual clinical trials, not a footnote. They are dose-related, which is part of why community protocols sit well below the trial dose.
- Elamipretide received FDA accelerated approval in September 2025 as Forzinity, but only for Barth syndrome in patients weighing at least 30 kg. That is an ultra-rare inherited cardiolipin disorder, approved on an intermediate strength endpoint. It says nothing about healthy adults, and a research-chemical vial labeled SS-31 is not that product and carries none of that oversight.
- MOTS-c activates AMPK and improves glucose uptake in animal models. If you take insulin or another glucose-lowering drug, treat that as a plausible additive effect and monitor; light-headedness dosed fasted is commonly reported.
- Neither compound has any long-term safety data in healthy people. MOTS-c has never been through an interventional human dosing trial at all, so "well tolerated" claims about it rest on user reports, not on monitored subjects.
- This is an expensive stack with an unmeasurable endpoint, which is a bad combination for deciding whether to keep going. Set the block length before you start and stop at the end of it rather than extending on the basis of how you feel.
- Not for use in pregnancy, and not for under-18s.
Components
What is in it, and when
| Compound | Dose | Frequency | Time | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MOTS-c | 5 mg2.5 mg–10 mg | Three times a week3×/week | Morning | 5 mg three times weekly is the most commonly repeated pattern, and it is convention rather than a trial dose - the figures are scaled off the 10 mg vial that happens to be the standard market size. Usually taken in the morning, fasted, on the theory that it is an exercise mimetic; that timing is a habit, not a finding. Vendor guides also circulate 0.5-2 mg daily schedules, which conflict with both this range and their own comment sections. | Calculator → |
| SS-31 (Elamipretide) | 10 mg5 mg–40 mg | Once daily7×/week | Morning | 10 mg daily. Note the gap between practice and evidence at both ends of this range: the trials that produced the human safety record mostly used 40 mg subcutaneously once daily, while community protocols run 5-10 mg. The lower doses are cheaper and better tolerated but were never the doses studied, so a null result at 5 mg tells you nothing about the compound. | Calculator → |
Doses are per administration, in the canonical unit. The second line under each dose is the range people run. Each calculator link prefills the reconstitution math for that component.
Delivered dose vs standalone dose
How these doses compare to running each compound alone
Each bar is that compound’s own dose range from its monograph, with a marker where this protocol puts it. A marker outside the band means the protocol is not dosing that compound the way it is dosed on its own — for a fixed-ratio vial that is arithmetic, not a choice.
MOTS-c
At the ceiling of the range- Per dose
- 200% of typical
- Per week
- 15 mg · 300% of standalone
- Cycle total
- 120 mg · 24 doses
Dosed three times a week here against twice a week standalone, so the weekly figure is the fairer of the two comparisons.
5 mg three times weekly is the most commonly repeated pattern, and it is convention rather than a trial dose - the figures are scaled off the 10 mg vial that happens to be the standard market size. Usually taken in the morning, fasted, on the theory that it is an exercise mimetic; that timing is a habit, not a finding. Vendor guides also circulate 0.5-2 mg daily schedules, which conflict with both this range and their own comment sections.
SS-31 (Elamipretide)
Within standalone range- Per dose
- 100% of typical
- Per week
- 70 mg · 100% of standalone
- Cycle total
- 560 mg · 56 doses
10 mg daily. Note the gap between practice and evidence at both ends of this range: the trials that produced the human safety record mostly used 40 mg subcutaneously once daily, while community protocols run 5-10 mg. The lower doses are cheaper and better tolerated but were never the doses studied, so a null result at 5 mg tells you nothing about the compound.
Schedule — 8 weeks
Week by week
| Compound | 1Week 1 | 2Week 2 | 3Week 3 | 4Week 4 | 5Week 5 | 6Week 6 | 7Week 7 | 8Week 8 | Cycle total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MOTS-c5 mg · 3×/wk | 120 mg24 doses | ||||||||
| SS-31 (Elamipretide)10 mg · 7×/wk | 560 mg56 doses |
The dataset records one dose per component, so every dosing week is identical. Where a protocol note describes a loading phase followed by maintenance, that phase change is in the note, not in the schedule — read the component notes before assuming the grid is the whole story.
Evidence
What is actually known
BOTH ARE THIN ON HUMAN DATA, BUT NOT EQUALLY THIN. SS-31 / elamipretide has by far the better record and it is worth being precise about what that record is. Stealth BioTherapeutics ran randomized phase 2 and phase 3 studies in primary mitochondrial myopathy (the MMPOWER program), Barth syndrome, dry age-related macular degeneration and heart failure, mostly at 40 mg subcutaneously once daily. Results were mixed and several trials, MMPOWER-3 among them, missed their primary endpoints. In September 2025 the FDA granted accelerated approval for Barth syndrome on the basis of knee extensor strength as an intermediate endpoint - the first approval for a mitochondria-targeted therapeutic. All of that is real, and none of it is evidence for use in a healthy adult who wants more energy: it is evidence in specific, severe, genetically defined mitochondrial disease. MOTS-c is preclinical. The strong findings - improved insulin sensitivity, reduced diet-induced obesity, improved physical capacity including in aged animals - are all in mice. Human work is observational: circulating MOTS-c has been measured against exercise, age, insulin resistance and a longevity-associated mitochondrial variant, which tells you the peptide is biologically interesting and nothing about what happens when you inject it. There is no established human dosing trial and no approved product. THE COMBINATION IS UNTESTED. Nothing has been published on the two together. The vendor claim that they are complementary - biogenesis from MOTS-c, membrane repair from SS-31 - is a tidy story assembled from two separate preclinical literatures. NOT REPEATED FROM THE CACHED GUIDES: that SS-31 raises ATP with noticeable stamina gains by week two and "strong mitochondrial efficiency" by week four; that it works selectively in stressed or ageing mitochondria in humans; and that MOTS-c raises VO2 max, increases mitochondrial density and prevents metabolic slowdown. Those are extrapolations from animal and cell work presented as user outcomes.
Educational information only, not medical advice. Talk to a licensed clinician before starting, changing, or stopping anything.