What "energy" turns out to mean
Searches for peptides for energy land, almost without exception, on mitochondria — the compartment that turns food and oxygen into usable chemical energy. The reasoning is straightforward: if tiredness reflects mitochondrial function, a compound acting on mitochondria should lift it.
Three compounds carry that idea, plus one that is not a peptide at all:
- Elamipretide (SS-31), which binds cardiolipin in the inner mitochondrial membrane
- MOTS-c, a peptide encoded inside mitochondrial DNA rather than in the nucleus
- Humanin, another mitochondria-derived peptide
- NAD, a coenzyme, sold through the same vocabulary — its own entry explains why it is in this library at all
What the record holds for each is very different, and the differences are the page.
Elamipretide is now an approved medicine
This is the only compound in this library's "energy" group with a product on a label, and the details of that label are the most useful facts on this page.
FORZINITY, from Stealth Biotherapeutics, label effective 2025-12-10, subcutaneous.
Indicated to improve muscle strength in adult and pediatric patients with Barth syndrome weighing at least 30 kg.
Three qualifications are written into the indication itself:
- Barth syndrome is an ultra-rare inherited disorder affecting cardiolipin, not general fatigue.
- It is an accelerated approval, granted on knee extensor muscle strength — an intermediate clinical endpoint. The label states that continued approval may be contingent on a confirmatory trial describing clinical benefit.
- The approved population is defined by weight, at 30 kg and above.
The label's stated dosage for that population is 40 mg subcutaneously once daily, reduced in adults with severe renal impairment. That figure is reported here as the regulator published it, which is the only sense in which this library carries a dose.
The trial that measured fatigue, and missed
Before Barth syndrome, the same molecule was tested in a larger and more general muscle question, and that trial is the single most relevant result anyone searching this topic can be given.
NCT03323749 — a phase 3, randomised, placebo-controlled trial of daily subcutaneous elamipretide in primary mitochondrial myopathy, 218 participants.
Its two primary endpoints:
- the six-minute walk test
- a total fatigue score, on the Primary Mitochondrial Myopathy Symptom Assessment
Its status is terminated, and the registry's stated reason reads, verbatim:
"Part1,double blind portion of the trial did not meet the primary end points"
Results were posted on 2021-04-02.
So the one properly powered randomised trial that set out to measure tiredness and walking distance with a mitochondrial peptide did not show a difference on either. The same molecule was later approved in a different, much rarer disease on a different endpoint. Both facts are true, and a page about peptides for energy that gives only the second one is leaving out the one that answers the question being asked.
The rest of the elamipretide record
Twenty-one registrations, and the distribution says something about where this science has been able to get answers:
| Area | Notable studies |
|---|---|
| Eye disease | ReNEW phase 3 in age-related macular degeneration (313), ReCLAIM-2 phase 2 (176), Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy, Fuchs' corneal dystrophy |
| Rare mitochondrial disease | Barth syndrome phase 2/3 and a phase 4, primary mitochondrial myopathy phase 3 (terminated), expanded access |
| Heart | reperfusion injury in acute coronary syndrome (300), heart failure ventricular function (46) |
| Ageing and muscle | skeletal muscle function in the elderly (41, completed); healthy ageing and physical function (30, recruiting) |
Queried 2026-09-20. Exactly one of the twenty-one addresses the question a healthy person searching for an energy peptide is asking, and it is a 30-person investigator-initiated study that has not reported.
MOTS-c and humanin: measured, not given
Both are genuine mitochondria-derived peptides with real scientific literatures. Neither has a clinical record, and the way their registry hits mislead is worth showing.
MOTS-c returns nine records. Eight of them measure MOTS-c in blood as an outcome of something else: anaesthesia technique in kidney transplant, high-intensity exercise in dialysis patients, Ramadan fasting against time-restricted feeding, platelet reactivity in type 2 diabetes, exercise after breast cancer. The ninth — the only one that gives MOTS-c to anybody — is from Hudson Biotech, a sponsor whose eight filings all sit at a single hospital and two of which describe themselves in their own summaries as example or fictional records. The same sponsor set appears on the healing page, where it is set out in full.
Humanin returns seven records, and all seven measure it as a biomarker — in acute kidney injury, after cardiac surgery, in IVF outcomes in polycystic ovary syndrome, in muscle biopsies taken during surgery for cerebral palsy.
A compound can have hundreds of papers and zero administrations. Counting registry hits would credit MOTS-c with nine studies and humanin with seven; opening them leaves one and none.
What the record supports
- One approved product, for an ultra-rare genetic disease, on a muscle-strength endpoint, with a confirmatory trial outstanding.
- One phase 3 that directly measured fatigue, which missed its endpoints and stopped.
- One recruiting study, of 30 people, aimed at healthy ageing.
- No trial at all in which anyone was given MOTS-c or humanin and asked whether they felt less tired.
That is a thin basis for the category, and stating it plainly is more useful than either dismissing the science or repeating the claim. The mitochondrial biology is not in question. The step from that biology to a person's energy is the step nobody has yet made in a way anyone can check.
Where each compound's entry goes further
- SS-31 — the cardiolipin binder, its chemistry and its programme
- MOTS-c — the peptide written in mitochondrial DNA
- Humanin — a large literature and an empty clinical record
- NAD — not a peptide, and why it is here anyway
- 5-amino-1MQ — the other metabolic compound sold through this vocabulary
Neighbouring hubs: peptides for longevity covers the overlapping ageing claims, and peptides for sleep picks up the other half of what people mean by tiredness. The complete list is in the index by purpose.
Last checked
2026-09-20. Registry records were read through the ClinicalTrials.gov v2 API and the FORZINITY indication and dosage through the openFDA label endpoint, all on that date, with each MOTS-c and humanin record opened to establish whether it administers the compound.