The evidence for sleep.
DSIP and the growth hormone pairing: small old trials, mixed results, and what a sleep protocol can honestly promise.
Studies on this page
11 fetched
each read from its source
A sleep protocol here is built on DSIP, with the growth hormone pairing where the answers support it. The evidence for DSIP is old, small and consistent within its own limits, and this page sets out exactly what those limits are.
Before any of it: if you snore, stop breathing in the night, or wake unrefreshed no matter how long you were in bed, the first step is a sleep study and not a compound. No peptide opens an obstructed airway.
DSIP
DSIP is a nine-amino-acid peptide named for its association with slow-wave sleep, first studied in the 1970s. It is the compound a sleep protocol is built on, and its evidence is old, small and, on its own terms, reasonably consistent.
Every human trial fetched here gave it intravenously, in a laboratory, with polysomnography measuring the result. None of them looks like the way it is used now.
What has been studied.
| Study | Who | n | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eur J Anaesthesiol 20091RCT | Women having surgery under inhaled anaesthesia | 24 | During anaesthesia |
| Used as an adjunct to anaesthesia, it altered the depth-of-anaesthesia index, the electroencephalogram and heart rate variability. | |||
| Neuropsychobiology 19922double-blind trial | People with chronic insomnia, matched pairs | 16 | 5 nights, dosed before three of them |
| Sleep efficiency was higher and time to fall asleep shorter against placebo, measured by polysomnography. | |||
| Eur Neurol 19873controlled clinical trial | Middle-aged people with chronic insomnia | 14 | 7 successive nights |
| Night sleep improved from the first dose and further with repeated doses, and the improvement held into the first placebo night afterwards. | |||
| Experientia 19814clinical trial | Middle-aged people with chronic insomnia | 6 | Single intravenous dose |
| Longer sleep, fewer interruptions, slightly more REM sleep, no daytime sedation. The effect appeared in the second hour after injection. | |||
| Lancet 19815clinical trial, letter | People with insomnia | not stated | not stated |
| A 1981 letter in a major journal reporting improved sleep. It is listed here for completeness and it carries no abstract. | |||
What it is approved for.
- None found on any page fetched for this build.
What has not been studied.
- No trial published since 1992 in insomnia was found. The evidence base stopped, which usually means interest moved on rather than that a question was settled.
- The trials had six to sixteen participants each. Nothing approaching a modern trial size exists.
- Every fetched sleep trial used the intravenous route in a laboratory. Nothing published on subcutaneous use at home, which is how it is used.
- Nothing on long-term use, nothing on tolerance, and nothing in a Filipino population.
Side effects, and who stopped.
The trials report no daytime sedation, which for a sleep compound is the effect people most want to avoid. One 1981 study noted a slight arousing effect in the first hour before sleep improved in the second. There is no long-term safety data at all.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
Small, old, laboratory trials found better sleep efficiency, shorter time to fall asleep and no morning hangover, and that is a genuinely encouraging pattern for a compound this obscure. It is also six to sixteen people at a time, four decades ago, by a route you will not be using. Rule out an airway problem before you treat a sleep problem with anything.
CJC-1295
CJC-1295 is a long-acting analogue of growth hormone-releasing hormone. It binds to albumin in the blood after injection, which gives it a half-life of about eight days and means it raises the body's own growth hormone output rather than replacing it. On this site it is paired with ipamorelin.
The published human work is about the hormones themselves. It shows the axis being activated, over weeks, in healthy adults. What it does not show is a downstream result of the kind people take it for.
What has been studied.
| Study | Who | n | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Growth Horm IGF Res 20096human serum study | Healthy young adult men | 11 | Before and after treatment |
| Serum protein changes were mapped after the axis was activated, as a search for better markers of growth hormone action than IGF-1 alone. | |||
| J Clin Endocrinol Metab 20067RCT, ascending dose | Healthy adults aged 21 to 61 | 2 trials | 28 and 49 days |
| Growth hormone and IGF-1 rose and stayed raised, which is what the compound is for. No outcome beyond the hormones was measured. | |||
| J Clin Endocrinol Metab 20068clinical trial | Healthy men aged 20 to 40 | not stated | One week after a single injection |
| Growth hormone kept its natural pulsing pattern rather than being flattened by continuous stimulation, and the pulse measures were related to the rise in IGF-1. | |||
What it is approved for.
- None found on any page fetched for this build.
What has not been studied.
- No trial measured strength, muscle mass, body composition or sleep quality as an endpoint in the fetched record. Every human study measured growth hormone, IGF-1 or serum proteins.
- The longest fetched human study ran 49 days. Nothing published goes beyond that.
- Nothing in combination with ipamorelin, which is how it is actually used, and nothing in a Filipino population.
Side effects, and who stopped.
Safety was a stated outcome measure in the ascending-dose trials and no limiting problem is reported in the fetched abstracts. A 2018 review of growth hormone secretagogues notes tolerability alongside a concern about rising blood glucose from falling insulin sensitivity, which is why a protocol on this axis tracks glucose.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
What is shown is that the axis can be raised and held raised for weeks, with the natural pulsing pattern kept rather than flattened. What is not shown is that this produces strength, muscle or sleep you would notice, because nobody measured those. The one blood marker worth tracking is IGF-1, read against age-adjusted ranges by your doctor.
Ipamorelin
Ipamorelin is a five-amino-acid growth hormone secretagogue that acts on the ghrelin receptor. It was designed to release growth hormone without dragging the other pituitary hormones up with it, which is what selective means here, and it is paired with CJC-1295 because the two act on different receptors.
What has been studied.
| Study | Who | n | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Int J Colorectal Dis 20149phase 2 RCT | Adults having open or laparoscopic bowel resection | multicentre | Twice daily infusions after surgery |
| The only fetched randomised clinical outcome trial, and it is about bowel recovery after surgery rather than about strength or body composition. | |||
| Pharm Res 199910clinical trial, dose escalation | Healthy male volunteers, eight per dose level | 40 | Single 15-minute infusions |
| A single episode of growth hormone release peaking at about 40 minutes and declining to negligible levels, with a short half-life of about two hours. | |||
| Eur J Endocrinol 199811preclinical | Rat pituitary cells and animals | n/a | n/a |
| The paper that introduced the compound, describing it as the first selective growth hormone secretagogue, meaning it releases growth hormone without the other pituitary hormones. | |||
What it is approved for.
- None found on any page fetched for this build. It reached a phase 2 clinical trial for a hospital indication and no approval followed in the fetched record.
What has not been studied.
- No trial of ipamorelin for strength, muscle or body composition was found. The only fetched randomised clinical outcome trial was about bowel recovery after abdominal surgery.
- The human pharmacology study was single infusions in healthy men, not weeks of use.
- Nothing on the pairing with CJC-1295, which is the only way it appears on this site.
Side effects, and who stopped.
The phase 2 surgical trial assessed safety alongside efficacy, and the pharmacology study reports no limiting problem. There is no long-term human dataset.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
It reliably produces a single pulse of growth hormone that peaks within the hour and clears. Whether a series of those pulses over 90 days changes anything you can feel is not something the fetched literature has tested.
Three minutes. Built from your answers.
Get startedWhy the DSIP evidence stops in 1992.
The fetched trials run from 1981 to 1992 and then nothing. That pattern usually means a compound stopped being interesting to the people funding trials, not that a question was answered. It is a reason for caution and it is not evidence of harm.
What survives from that period is a consistent small signal: better sleep efficiency, shorter time to fall asleep, no daytime sedation, in groups of six to sixteen people, given intravenously in a laboratory. Every one of those qualifiers matters when you are considering an injection at home.
The order that actually works.
Room first, because in this city the room is usually the problem and a compound cannot cool a bedroom. Then the airway, ruled out with a study if there is any reason to suspect it. Then timing and light. Then, if the problem is still there, a compound, with something measuring it so you know whether anything changed.
That order is not a hedge. It is the sequence in which the interventions actually have evidence behind them, from strongest to weakest, and a sleep protocol that skips the first three is starting at the weakest one. Take it to a doctor who knows you before you begin.
Questions
Is DSIP a sedative?
The fetched trials describe better sleep efficiency and shorter time to fall asleep with no daytime sedation, which is not how a sedative behaves. One study noted a slight arousing effect in the first hour before sleep improved in the second.
How good is the evidence?
Small and old. Six to sixteen participants per trial, between 1981 and 1992, given intravenously in a sleep laboratory with polysomnography. Consistent within those limits and nowhere near a modern trial standard.
Should I get a sleep study first?
If you snore, stop breathing, or wake unrefreshed regardless of hours, yes. A compound cannot fix an obstructed airway, and the hospital sleep laboratories on this site publish what a study involves.
What about the growth hormone pairing for sleep?
People report deeper sleep on it, and no fetched trial measured sleep as an endpoint for either compound in that pair. The trials measured hormones.
Sources
Every record below was fetched on the date shown. Nothing on this page is cited that did not fetch.
- 01Pomfrett CJ, et al. Delta sleep-inducing peptide alters bispectral index, the electroencephalogram and heart rate variability when used as an adjunct to isoflurane anaesthesia. Eur J Anaesthesiol 2009. PubMed 19142086 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 02Bes F, et al. Effects of delta sleep-inducing peptide on sleep of chronic insomniac patients. A double-blind study. Neuropsychobiology 1992. PubMed 1299794 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 03Schneider-Helmert D Effects of delta-sleep-inducing peptide on 24-hour sleep-wake behaviour in severe chronic insomnia. Eur Neurol 1987. PubMed 3622582 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 04Schneider-Helmert D, et al. The influence of synthetic DSIP (delta-sleep-inducing-peptide) on disturbed human sleep. Experientia 1981. PubMed 7028502 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 05Schneider-Helmert D, et al. Synthetic delta-sleep-inducing peptide improves sleep in insomniacs. Lancet 1981. PubMed 6112579 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 06Sackmann-Sala L, et al. Activation of the GH/IGF-1 axis by CJC-1295, a long-acting GHRH analog, results in serum protein profile changes in normal adult subjects. Growth Horm IGF Res 2009. PubMed 19386527 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 07Teichman SL, et al. Prolonged stimulation of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor I secretion by CJC-1295, a long-acting analog of GH-releasing hormone, in healthy adults. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2006. PubMed 16352683 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 08Ionescu M, et al. Pulsatile secretion of growth hormone (GH) persists during continuous stimulation by CJC-1295, a long-acting GH-releasing hormone analog. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2006. PubMed 17018654 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 09Beck DE, et al. Prospective, randomized, controlled, proof-of-concept study of the Ghrelin mimetic ipamorelin for the management of postoperative ileus in bowel resection patients. Int J Colorectal Dis 2014. PubMed 25331030 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 10Gobburu JV, et al. Pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modeling of ipamorelin, a growth hormone releasing peptide, in human volunteers. Pharm Res 1999. PubMed 10496658 · doi · read 2026-09-07
- 11Raun K, et al. Ipamorelin, the first selective growth hormone secretagogue. Eur J Endocrinol 1998. PubMed 9849822 · doi · read 2026-09-07
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