Is Humanin legal in the United States?

A tiny peptide made from mitochondrial DNA. In people it has been watched, not given. It falls with age, runs high in the children of people who lived to 100, tracks with heart and blood sugar risk, and rises in the muscle of people with one mitochondrial disease. No study has given it to people as a drug.

Humanin is a chain of 24 amino acids. Its recipe sits in the DNA of mitochondria, the cell's power plants.

How it works: Humanin switches on signals that protect cells and stop them self-destructing. Part of this is by binding two proteins, IGFBP-3 and Bax.

Approval history: Not FDA-approved; investigational. Unlike BPC-157, TB-500 and MOTS-c, nobody had put it forward for the FDA's list of ingredients pharmacies may use (the 503A bulks list) as of the July 2026 Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee meeting

Approves prescription drugs, each for a named use. It also acts against unapproved products, including peptides sold online. Compounding pharmacies, which mix drugs to order, may make some compounds with a prescription. That only applies when the FDA puts the compound in a category of bulk ingredients it allows.

The legal category above is how The Longevity Archive reads U.S. Food and Drug Administration listings for Humanin on the reviewed date. It is not a legal opinion. Rules change. Bringing a compound into the country, prescribing it and owning it can each be treated differently. Check with the agency before you act on anything here.

Check FDA directly

Whether Humanin is banned in sport is set by the World Anti-Doping Code and by military rules, not by its legal status in the United States. Before you compete or get tested, look up Humanin by name on the Prohibited List, or look up a named product in Global DRO. Under the World Anti-Doping Code, category S0 bans, at all times, any drug-like substance that meets two tests. No other section of the List covers it. And no government health regulator anywhere has a current approval for it as a treatment in people. Many substances that are approved somewhere are banned by name in another section. So approval does not mean a substance is allowed in sport.

• WADA Prohibited List
• Global DRO (check a named product)
• USADA (US athletes)
• Operation Supplement Safety (US service members)

The rules you compete or serve under decide this, not this page.