Sermorelin Acetate

What Does Sermorelin Do?

Sermorelin is one of the most widely tested and researched peptides in the world. According to Richard Walker, Ph.D., Sermorelin may offer a natural solution to the slow, but steady decline of growth hormone that we all experience as we age. This may not sound like much, but keep in mind that waning growth hormone levels have been linked to everything from lost muscle tone to increasing cardiovascular disease and dementia.

Dr. Walker, of the Duke University School of Medicine Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, has studied sermorelin and growth hormone (GH) replacement for years. He likens sermorelin to the fountain of youth and has launched a number of trials to investigate its properties. As he points out, one of the benefits of sermorelin is that it is subject to normal feedback mechanisms in the body. This means it is safter to utilize sermorelin than GH. The way that sermorelin works makes it ideal for GH replacement according to Dr. Walker.

For those who are curious about why sermorelin is receiving so much research attention and are asking “what does sermorelin do,” the following is a summary of the scientific findings surrounding this remarkable peptide. Various sections take a look at the mechanism by which sermorelin works as well as the effects it has on a wide array of tissues.

Sermorelin Boosts Wound Healing

HGH itself is a potent stimulator of wound healing, so it should come as no surprise that peptides like sermorelin, that increase HGH levels, have positive effects on the rate of wound healing. What might be more surprising, however, is the fact that sermorelin can help to reduce scar formation and extent. Scars, while obviously leading to wound healing, can cause tissue- and organ-level dysfunction. Mitigation of scarring while still promoting wound healing is a holy grail of medicine. Nowhere is this more true than in the cardiovascular system.Scarring of the heart is especially problematic because scars in cardiac tissue interfere with the ability of the heart to conduct electrical impulses and contract correctly as well as efficiently. This is the fundamental process underlying much of heart failure, which is still the leading cause of death in most industrialized nations. Research in rat models shows that sermorelin can protect heart cells from death, increase the production of extracellular matrix components, improve blood vessel growth, and reduce inflammatory cytokine levels. All of these factors lead to reduces in the size of scars following cardiac injury, which in turn leads to improve cardiac function. There is a great deal of interest in using sermorelin in the setting of acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) as a means of reducing the long-term consequences of this devastating event[4], [5].

The Impact of Sermorelin on Sleep

The sleep cycle, which is to say the progression of brain function through the various stages of sleep including REM sleep, is at least partially regulated by orexin. This potent neurochemical is produced by specialized neurons that are strongly associated with growth hormone secretion. Research in fish shows that orexin secretion is heavily dependent on a healthy growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) axis. This research shows that sermorelin can boost orexin secretion via its effects on the GHRH receptor[6].

It should come as no surprise, given the proponents of sermorelin as a potential peptide in the fight against aging, that sleep plays a very prominent role in the aging process. Though it is a common misconception that older people don’t require as much sleep as their younger counterparts, this is absolutely not true. The elderly require just as much sleep as the rest of us, but inadequate sleep is both a cause of and consequence of aging. Recent advances in both the diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea are having a profound effect on improving this situation, but there is still a great deal of room for progress[7]. Sermorelin, but establishing a more youthful GH secretion pattern, may be one of the keys to helping to not only offset the effects of sleep on the aging process, but also the effects of aging on sleep. Dr. Richard Walker, of the International Society for Advanced Research in Aging (SARA), points out that sermorelin may be one of the most effective GHRH-R agonists for addressing the effects of aging and replacing HGH in treating growth hormone deficiency associated with age.

Sermorelin vs. CJC-1295 StructureBelow are the structures of sermorelin and CJC-1295 laid out in various formats. Notice that sermorelin is simply GHRH 1-29. That is to say, sermorelin is simply the first 29 amino acids from the much larger growth hormone-releasing hormone. CJC-1295 is also made up of the first 29 amino acids of GHRH, but some of the amino acids have been modified.

Sermorelin Structure

Sequence: Tyr-Ala-Asp-Ala-Phe-Thr-Asn-Ser-Tyr-Arg-Lys-Val-Leu-Gly-Gln-Leu-Ser-Ala-Arg-Lys-Leu-Leu-Gln-Asp-Met-Ser-Arg

Molecular Formula: C149H246N44O42S

Molecular Weight: 3357.933 g/mol

PubChem CID: 16129620

Source: PubChem

CJC-1295 Structure

Sequence: Tyr-D-Ala-Asp-Ala-Ile-Phe-Thr-Gln-Ser-Tyr-Arg-Lys-Val-Leu-Ala-Gln-Leu-Ser-Ala-Arg-Lys-Leu-Leu-Gln-Asp-Ile-Leu-Ser-Arg

Molecular Formula: C152H252N44O42

Molecular Weight: 3367.954 g/mol

PubChem CID: 56841945

Source: PubChem