Humanin
Also called HN, mitochondrial derived peptide
Humanin is a peptide your mitochondria encode themselves - not the cell nucleus, the mitochondria - which was a real surprise when it was found.
The published research here is animal and laboratory work.
- Energy
- Longevity & anti-aging
The quick answer
Humanin is a peptide your mitochondria encode themselves - not the cell nucleus, the mitochondria - which was a real surprise when it was found. It appears to be part of a signal mitochondria send out when they are under stress, and levels of it fall as people age.
What it is not
Not something with a body of user experience behind it yet.
Why people use it
🧠 Neuroprotective in the research; 🍬 Insulin-sensitivity effects in the animal work; 🔋 Part of the mitochondrial signalling family alongside MOTS-c; 🧬 Found naturally higher in long-lived families
What people report using
No settled community convention exists for it yet, and we would rather say that than invent a range. If you have seen one reported, the conversation is the place to tell us.
What to expect, and when
No reliable timeline. The reports that exist are too few and too vague to form a pattern.
Side effects, and what people do about them
Very little reported, largely because very little is used. No pattern has emerged.
Go deeper
Open these only if you want them.
How it actually works
A mitochondria-derived peptide encoded in the 16S rRNA region of mitochondrial DNA. It acts inside the cell, blocking Bax-mediated apoptosis, and outside it at a cell-surface receptor complex, with effects on insulin sensitivity and neuronal survival. It belongs to the same family as MOTS-c.
More on the evidence
No established dosing convention exists for this in people. The work behind it is animal and cell research, and human use is sporadic enough that no consistent pattern has formed in community reporting either. We are not publishing a ladder because there is not one to publish — this is the "nobody knows yet" case rather than the "we have not got to it" case. If you have seen numbers circulating, bring them to us before you draw anything up.
What people report, in full
Humanin is a compound the community is interested in and has barely used. Almost all the discussion is about the science - that it is encoded by mitochondrial DNA, that it declines with age, that the centenarian-offspring studies found higher levels in people who live long - rather than about experience. The comparison that comes up constantly is MOTS-c, from the same family, which people have actually run and can describe; Humanin threads tend to be someone asking whether it is worth trying and someone else answering that MOTS-c is the one with reports behind it. Where first-hand accounts exist they are vague and centre on energy, which is the hardest thing to judge honestly. This is a compound where the genuinely interesting part is the biology.
Worth knowing
This is the normal state of this category and it is not a black mark. It usually means nobody could patent the molecule tightly enough to fund a trial. It is not the same as having been tested and failed.
Animal and cell work only. The human observational finding - higher levels in long-lived families - is real, but it is a correlation, not evidence that taking it does anything.
Sources and review
This record is built on what the wider community reports doing and experiencing, summarised above. No counted dataset has been attached to this compound yet — when one is published, it goes here with its numbers.
Hashimoto Y, et al. A rescue factor abolishing neuronal cell death by a wide spectrum of familial Alzheimer's disease genes and Abeta. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2001. PMID 11371646.Cell models; the original identification of humanin.
Yen K, et al. The mitochondrial derived peptide humanin is a regulator of lifespan and healthspan. Aging (Albany NY) 2020. PMID 32575074.Animal lifespan study.
These references were located by literature search and recorded as the primary sources behind this record. The publishers block automated retrieval, so they are pointers to the right papers rather than quotations we have checked line by line. They are replaced as we read them properly.
Last reviewed 2026-09-08.
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Still not sure?
Ask it the way you would ask a person. Follow-up questions are the point — it remembers what you already said.
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