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Selank Peptide: Benefits, Dosage & Side Effects

Let’s be honest: Even the highest-level performers and go-getters find themselves facing periods of anxiety and overwhelm.

Anxiety is a universal state of mind felt by everybody from all walks of life, whether you’re stressing out over something insignificant or dealing with a life-changing situation.

Not to mention how anxiety always seems to be present in poor mental health:

“Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year. Anxiety disorders are highly treatable, yet only 36.9% of those suffering receive treatment.”

But what if there was an alternative way to reaching a place of peace and calm in your headspace?

What if one of the world’s leading peptide physicians told you a single peptide was all it took to “potentially replace stimulants, tranquilizers, and antidepressants”?

This peptide exists and it is known as Selank – widely recognized and used in Russia, but virtually unheard of in Western medicine.

Get ready to discover everything you need to know about the Selank peptide – where it came from, why it works, and what the Russians have learned about its anti-anxiety properties.

What is Selank?

Selank Peptide

Selank (a.k.a. TP-7) is a synthetic heptapeptide (i.e. seven amino acids long) derived from a naturally occuring peptide in your body known as tuftsin:

“Tuftsin, which is derived from the heavy chain of human immunoglobulin, is a tetrapeptide (Thr–Lys–Pro–Arg) that stimulates the phagocytic activity of polymorphonuclear leukocytes. (Tuftsin was named for Tufts University where the tetrapeptide was discovered).

It is activated in the spleen and bound to a carrier leukokinin molecule, a gamma-globulin which coats the polymorph”

In plain English, tuftsin is a critical part of a properly-functioning immune system.

But it also turns out tuftsin had some noticeable impacts on the central nervous system, which piqued the interest of Soviet scientists working at the Institute for Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

“In the early 1980s, Valdman and Ashmarin hypothesized that the regulator of the peripheral immune system, tuftsin (which exhibited structural similarity to a family of neuropeptides), has an impact on the CNS”

“…However, natural peptides are highly unstable when injected into the body, and have a short-term effect. Russian scientists conducted a detailed study of the synthesis and long-acting effect of tuftsin analogs.

The result was а heptapeptide containing the sequence Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg elongated with the C-terminal part of the tripeptide Pro-Gly-Pro, which proved to be most suitable for the stabilization of the molecule and enhanced its resistance to proteases”

The end result in the 1990s was the anxiolytic – i.e. anxiety-reducing – peptide called Selank, as you can see below:

Selank Structure

(Source)

Currently, Selank is approved for use in humans to treat generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) by the Russian Federation Ministry of Health (and has been since 2009)… yet you won’t see its name mentioned anytime soon by the US Food and Drug Administration.

It may be available in Ukraine and other countries within the Eastern Bloc, but at best you will only see Selank available elsewhere as a research chemical not designated for human consumption.

How Does Selank Work?

So where exactly do Selank’s anti-anxiety properties come from?

It’s hard to say for sure, but researchers have discovered a few mechanisms of action to explain why people seem to feel much calmer after taking the peptide.

1) Reducing the breakdown of enkephalins

If we dig deep into what we know about brain chemistry, it appears as if the neuropeptide enkphalin may have something to do with why we experience anxiety:

“Experiments in mice have shown that ‘deleting’ the natural opioid enkephalin, which is heavily expressed in the brain’s amygdala, increases their fear, anxiety and aggressiveness. By contrast, increasing enkephalin or reducing its breakdown reduces these behaviours.”

“While this effect of enkephalin suggests that it is anxiety-inhibiting, when it binds to different receptors in the amygdala, it exerts opposing effects, depending on which one it binds to.”

So it would make perfect sense to either increase enkephalin production or decrease the rate at which it is degraded in the brain.

The latter is precisely what Selank does, as confirmed in a study involving mice:

“Selank in a dose of 100 micrograms/kg produced an anxiolytic effect in the open-field test and increased the half-life of plasma leu-enkephalin in BALB/c mice, but had no effect on behavioral reactions and enkephalinase activities in C57Bl/6 mice.

Our results suggest that anxiolytic activity of Selank is associated with inhibition of enkephalin-degrading enzymes”

Put another way, Selank works by inhibiting the enzymes responsible for breaking down enkephalin.

This finding has been confirmed in both human serum and anxiety-ridden patients.

2) Demonstrates anti-inflammatory properties

Selank didn’t lose any of the immunity properties possessed by the naturally-occuring peptide tuftsin, as it can help induce your body into an anti-inflammatory state.

“Tuftsin shifts the immune response from an inflammatory response to an anti-inflammatory response. It does this by shifting T helper cells from Th1/TH17 turn into Th2/Treg (ie TNF-a -> IL-4, IL-10, TGFb1). Tuftsin (like ghrelin) can shift microglia into a M2 microglial anti-inflammatory response.

Selank can decrease the expression of IL-6 and balance T helper cells’s production of cytokines… Selank effects the XCL1–XCR1 axis, Il2rg gene expression and C3 gene expression.”

(By the way, the reference above is a great document comparing the similarities and differences of both tuftsin and Selank)

And as our good fortune would have it, this was also confirmed in human studies:

“…the significant increase (p<0,05) of IL-6 concentration was observed in the cell culture of peripheral blood of patients in the presence of selank. The changes of the Th1/Th2 cytokine balance in vivo were found in the serum of patients with generalized anxiety disorder and neurasthenia who received Selank during 14 days.

…The cytokine regulating effects revealed in the study suggest that selank can be used as a novel immunomodulator in patients with anxiety-asthenic disorders.”

If you seriously have trouble believing that inflammation could be related to anxiety disorders, we’re just recently starting to discover how the connection may be stronger than we think:

“There is growing evidence of a relationship between inflammation and psychiatric illness. In particular, the cytokine Interleukin-6 (IL-6) has been linked to stress-related disorders such as depression and anxiety”

Food for thought!

3) Increased BDNF production

In case you haven’t read The Metabolic Blowtorch Diet, allow me to remind you why brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is vital for everything related to learning and memory:

“BDNF regulates short-term synaptic functions, as well as long-term synaptic potentiation via binding with specific TrkB receptors on postsynaptic neurons. The increase in BDNF mRNA expression in the hippocampus after learning has also been shown. A decrease in endogenous BDNF levels in the rat brain using BDNF antibodies or antisense oligonucleotides impairs learning and memory.”

And some evidence even suggests lower BDNF levels are correlated with greater levels of anxiety:

“We conducted the review using electronic databases and searched reference lists of relevant articles for any further studies. Studies that measured BDNF protein levels in any anxiety disorder and compared these to a control group were included.

..Eight studies with a total of 1179 participants were included. Initial findings suggested that BDNF levels were lower in individuals with any anxiety disorder compared to those without. This was, however, dependent on source of BDNF protein  and type of anxiety disorder”

Although I couldn’t find any other study supporting this, one experiment done in rats suggests Selank can increase your brain’s BDNF production:

“A statistically significant 30% increase relative to the control value was found in the rat hippocampus BDNF level 24 h after the peptide administration at a dose of 250 or 500 µg/kg body weight

… The increase in both BDNF mRNA and protein levels suggests that Selank stimulates the expression of this neurotrophic factor exactly in the hippocampal cells, rather than its axonal transport from distant brain areas. The results indicate that Selank, possessing anxiolytic and nootropic properties, can regulate the hippocampal BDNF level in rats.”

One peptide chemist suggests this property is entirely related to the three-amino modification that turns tuftsin into Selank:

“The nootropic qualities are due to the tripeptide sequence on the C-terminus, which is Proline-Glycine-Proline… Proline-Glycine-Proline (PGP) sequences are what lead to increases in BDNF and NGF expression in the hippocampus. That increase in neurotrphic factors is the main “Nootropic” effect of Selank”

So on top of relieving your anxiety, it’s entirely possible to experience an additional cognitive-enhancing effect from Selank use.

4) Regulating the levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin

This is by far the most confusing part of Selank’s mode of action, but enough evidence suggests it has an influence on the production of several key neurotransmitters in your brain.

Most particularly, Selank seems to be heavily involved in the metabolism (i.e. breakdown) of serotonin:

“The injection of selank (0.3 mg/kg) led to an increase in the [norepinephrine] level in the hypothalamus of both mice strains.

At the same time, selank produced opposite effects on the content of [dopamine] metabolites: the concentrations of dioxyphenylacetic (DOPAC) and homovanillic (HVA) acids were found to increase in frontal cortex and hippocampus of C57Bl/6 mice, while the same parameters in BALB/C mice were demonstrated to decrease.

Selank induced a decrease in [serotonin] and 5-HIAA levels in the hippocampus of BALB/C mice, but did not affect these parameters in C57Bl/6 animals”

This is a property which appears to be exclusive to Selank, distinguishing it from the exerted effects of tuftsin.

Although we STILL do not understand a whole lot about serotonin with respect to anxiety, some scientists believe it is an excess of serotonin that contributes to higher levels of anxiety.

This YouTube video does a good job of summarizing how the Selank peptide affects production of neurotransmitters in your brain:

And when you use Selank for the first time, its pharmacokinetic profile suggests you’ll feel its effects quite rapidly:

“Absolute bioavailability of Selank when administered intranasally is 92.8%. The drug is rapidly absorbed from the nasal mucosa and after 30 seconds is detected in blood plasma. Concentration in plasma decreases progressively during 5- 5.5 minutes.

Any metabolites are not detected. It penetrates into the brain tissue. The drug is rapidly distributed to organs and tissues, it is found in unchanged form in a well-vascularized organs (liver, kidney, heart). The daily urine is not determined by any of unchanged drug or metabolites, that is caused by the rapid degradation of Selank under the influence of tissue peptidase.”

Let’s see how all of the above applies to the real world when Selank is used in both humans and animals.

Selank Peptide Benefits

Unless you can fluently read Russian and have access to the medical literature databases in the former Soviet Union, the English-written studies on Selank are a fraction of what’s available out there.

In fact, a quick PubMed search for “selank” reveals 113 studies published since 1975 as of this writing.

Nevertheless, this is more than enough to showcase how Selank’s benefits are numerous for both mental and physical health.

Treating Anxiety

When it comes to treating generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), Selank shines above other peptides and traditionally-used treatments.

In one human study pitting Selank against the popular benzodiazepine drug Medazepam, Selank lowered anxiety while also offering other health benefits unavailable to Medazepam users:

“The anxiolytic effects of both drugs were similar but selank had also antiasthenic and psychostimulant effects. The clinical-biological study revealed that patients with GAD and neurasthenia had the decreased level of tau(1/2) leu-enkephalin which was correlated with disease duration, severity of symptoms related to anxiety and asthenia and autonomic disorders.”

(For those of you who don’t know, asthenia is defined as “an ill-defined condition characterized by generalized weakness and usually involving mental and physical fatigue”)

Another human study using 60 anxiety-ridden test subjects came to a similar conclusion when Selank’s anti-anxiolytic effects were compared with those of Phenazepam:

” Pronounced anxiolytic and mild nootropic effects of selank were demonstrated. The anxiolytic effect lasted for a week after last receiving the peptide. Selank had a positive impact on the quality of life of the patients… The data obtained in the study extend therapeutic possibilities in the treatment of anxiety disorders.”

Even more mind-blowing is how Selank can REDUCE the side effects of Phenazepam when both treatments are combined together in patients with anxiety disorders:

“The combined treatment decreased the level of undesirable side-effects of phenazepam (attention and memory impairment, asthenia, sedation, increase in sleep duration, sexual disturbances, emotional indifference and orthostatism) during the course of treatment and after the tranquilizer withdrawal.”

Taken together, the therapeutic efficacy and reduction of side-effects had a positive impact on the quality-of-life of the patients treated with selank as add-on to phenazepam.”

And the same thing happens if Selank and Diazepam are used simultaneously to treat chronic mild stress conditions in rats:

“It was shown that the anxiolytic effect of Selank is comparable to that of classical benzodiazepine drugs and that the basis of their mechanism of action may be similar. These data suggest that the presence of Selank may change the action of classical benzodiazepine drugs. 

…The data obtained indicate that the individual administration of Selank was the most effective in reducing elevated levels of anxiety, induced by the administration of a course of test substances, whereas the combination of diazepam with Selank was the most effective in reducing anxiety in unpredictable chronic mild stress conditions.”

Doses of Selank that are more than two-fold higher than what myself or other peptide physicians would recommend (more on this later) have also been used in humans without any negative side effects.

Now you may be wondering: What’s the point of comparing Selank against benzodiazepines if they aim to do the same thing? 

As it turns out, benzodiazepines do more harm than good in patients who are already in an extreme state of distress:

“Some of the issues with benzodiazepine use include addiction, harmful combination with other drugs, and a long list of side effects. These side effects potentially outweigh the primary complaint the patient went to the doctor for”

“Benzodiazepines have been studied to a much greater extent but have dozens of undesirable side effects and a considerably difficult withdrawal for those that take the medication over long periods. Though no long-term trials have shown the efficacy for benzodiazepine use these medications are given for longer periods than they are supposed to be given for.”

Fortunately, Selank could provide similar anxiety-reducing effects – if not better – and completely bypass the need to experience some unwanted outcomes.

A lot of what’s been seen in these human studies thus far has been confirmed by top anti-aging physician Dr. Daniel Stickler, who has personally administered Selank to his own patients:

“I’ve seen really good results with Selank in people with a generalized anxiety disorder. And again, you have to use caution with this because Selank takes several days for most people to start working and they give up after, they don’t get a result after one… And it’s a nasal spray, so they tend to give up, but 60% of those people are slow responders.”

In addition to the human studies I provided, several anecdotal testimonials confirm the anxiety-reducing power of Selank:

“I didn’t know exactly what anxiety was until Selank, because I didn’t know what it was like not to have it. It’s not being scared something will go wrong, or depressed about something in the past. It’s your body screaming “OH NO! PANIC!” way too much.” (Source)

“…school seems easier and bad situations are less stressful. I seem to have confirmed that last part when something happened to me earlier this week (on day two of my Selank experience) that would have caused great distress, instead it totally didn’t! This is the first nootropic that I’ve tried that makes me want to give up racetams” (Source)

“I’ve tried most everything for [Selank] and it all makes me feel like I’m ‘on’ something. Selank feels natural and like a gentle lift whereas before it always felt like I was treading water when interacting with people. It felt like it took way too much effort and it drained me mentally. With Selank, there’s just such an ease and conversation flows without having to force it.” (Source)

“Since I don’t suffer from depression or anxiety I didn’t expect this peptide to do much BUT I was surprised by its effects on me. I’ve been through quite a lot in my workplace and there’s been many things stressing me out. This peptide activated in me what I call ZEN mode (lol), I just feel I am drifting through life with ease. Whenever there is a big stressful situation I stay calm or I get to my calmness very quickly. I am 10 days on this peptide and man it feels good.” (Source)

“I have been taking Selank for two weeks now, probably spraying it 1-2 times a day for 5-6 of the days in the week. It’s been truly unbelievable at stabilizing my mood… I know mood instability is one of the things that plagues me the most and I see it around here fairly often. So before you try something like Tianeptine (which is effective but has many downsides), I’d recommend Selank.” (Source)

Quite a convincing testimonial, if you ask me!

Finally, this YouTube video is a decent conversation about the use of the Selank peptide for anxiety and drug withdrawal:

 

Improved Short-Term and Long-Term Memory

I would imagine that the elimination of anxiety would naturally grant someone the focus and concentration needed to memorize important information.

I don’t know if Selank directly improves memory or leads to memory improvement BECAUSE of anxiety reduction, but it’s an interesting question worth pondering.

Sadly, all we have are two rat studies to make the question worth answering:

“It was revealed that injection of Selank (300 mkg/kg, i/p) increased 2–3-fold (p < 0.01) the sensory attention, facilitated 1.5-fold the learning capacity (p < 0.01), normalized exploratory activity in the open field and hole board, and recovered the balance of serotonergic and noradrenergic brain system activity.” (Source)

“A single injection of selank activated the metabolism of 5-HT in the hypothalamus and caudal brain stem for 30 min to 2 h. It was established that selank induces an increase in memory trace stability during 30 days. These findings provide direct evidence that selank, when injected during consolidation phase, can enhance memory storage processes” (Source)

Along with one anecdotal testimonial from someone who is now more engaged at his day job:

“Researched 250-300 2x day/ed and my monkey reported significant decrease in stress and anxiety, increased is social engagement and mental clarity, as well as the ability to complete menial, repetitive, boring tasks with ease and interest. My monkey is 5′ 10″ 180lbs and works in retail management.”

For those of you deep into the terminology associated with the nootropics world, you already know who the “monkey” is referring to! 😉

Enhanced Learning Speed

One of the original rat studies which lead to greater interest in Selank as a brain-boosting nootropic involved a head-to-head comparison between Selank and Piracetam:

“These experiments showed that Selank significantly activated the learning process in rats with initially poor learning ability, with effects apparent after first dose on training day 1.

The effect progressively increased on repeated administration of Selank: the total number of correct solutions increased and the number of errors decreased (p < 0.05).

The maximum optimizing activity of Selank on learning in normal rats was seen on day 3 of repeated administration and training, i.e., after formation of the initial consolidation phase”

While every user’s experience of Selank is different, some people claim they were able to absorb more information with less effort:

“5 days into my experience my most notable effects are: Enhanced short-term & working memory, enhanced focus, increased mental energy during times of fatigue, quicker recall, and increased ability to handle bad situations.”  

Another explanation for this observed effect could be related to Selank’s supposed ability to repair cognitive processes:

“We analyzed psychotropic activity of selank in Wistar rats neonatally injected with neurotoxin 6- hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) selectively destructing catecholaminergic (CA) neurons and their terminals, which is paralleled by inhibition of cerebral integrative activity, increased anxiety, and disorders in the cognitive processes”

“…These data indicate that selank characterized by nootropic and psychostimulatory effects normalized learning, memory, focused attention to stimuli of different modality, and the level of exploratory activity disturbed by chronic damage to the cerebral CA system.”

In short, Selank’s ability to enhance your learning speed may have to do with the simultaneous repair and optimization of your mental faculties.

Add in the possibility of increased blood flow to the brain as evidenced in cat studies (here and here), and you have a formula for enhanced cognition!

Treating Depression

If Selank is so effective at lowering anxiety levels, you can’t help but wonder if it can do the same thing for depression.

It’s no surprise the Russians have investigated using Selank for this purpose, and two animal studies seem fairly convincing of this new application.

The first one was conducted in rats where depressive symptoms were genetically inherited:

“Selank in high doses (1000-2000 microg/kg), after repeated injection counteracted symptoms of depression in behavior of WAG/Rij rats (increased immobilization in the forced swimming test and decreased sucrose intake or preference (anhedonia)).

Selank did not affect the level of general locomotor activity and anxiety in WAG/Rij rats, and did not exert substantial effect on the behavior of control Wistar rats. The results demonstrate the presence of antidepressant component in the spectrum of neuropsychotrophyc activity of selank.”

The second one involved treating neurotic monkeys who display some of the more aggressive symptoms of depression, such as sudden emotional outbursts:

“New data have been obtained which indicate that an intranasal administration of Selank produces long-term changes of the monkeys’ behavior disturbed during neurosis: elimination of fear and aggression and an increase of orientational-explorative activity as well as facilitation of handling reactions and communicational relations”

“Comparison of the data obtained on monkeys with results of similar studies on the more low-organized mammals (rodents) allow suggesting that the new peptide preparation Selank is a promising agent for correction of various psychoemotional disturbances (alarm- and depression-like disorders).”

As an anecdotal aside, one biohacker found Selank to be extremely helpful in reducing depression-induced laziness:

It really provides a fantastic clear, and calm feeling. It also seems to improve depression. I find that on days that I take selank. My inner dialogue is greatly reduced. I just simply do what i want to do without procrastination etc.”

…It seems to have a sort of a cumulative calming effect. As in. I retain benefits from using it after I am done.”

If you could take care of anxiety and depression with one single peptide and not experience any negative outcomes, it would be a dream come true.

Management of Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms

Recovering from alcohol addiction can be an incredibly difficult process, both mentally and physically, so why not make the road to sobriety much easier?

There has yet to be a human study investigating Selank for this purpose, yet several rat studies seem to reach the same conclusion:

“We studied the effects of selank on the development of symptoms of acute 48-h alcohol withdrawal in outbred rats drinking 10 % ethanol as the only source of fluid for 24 weeks… single intraperitoneal injection of selank in a dose of 0.3 mg/kg eliminated anxiety induced by ethanol withdrawal in tests elevated plus maze and social interaction tests and prevented the formation of mechanical allodynia without affecting ethanol consumption” (Source)

“In the object recognition test, Selank (0.3 mg/kg a day, 7 days, intraperitoneally) produced a cognitive-stimulating effect in 9 months rats not exposed to ethanol (p<0.05) and prevented the formation of ethanol-induced memory and attention disturbances (p<0.01) developing during alcohol withdrawal” (Source)

“Selank prevented ethanol-induced impairment of short-term nonspatial memory in young rats by statistically significantly increasing the discrimination index (p <0.01) and the recognition index (p <0.01) of a new stimulus object. The drug per se did not have a statistically significant effect on the process of memory consolidation in rats not exposed to alcohol” (Source)

As of right now, there currently exists a patent where the Selank peptide can be used to manage alcohol abstinence syndrome.

Let’s just hope when the right day comes along, Selank will be both affordable and accessible to people who truly need it.

Additional Benefits

As more studies are published on Selank, we are only at the very beginning of discovering all the ways in which it fixes various disease states and makes living life more worthwhile.

I really hope the following uses are pursued with more rigor, as Selank could be awfully useful to an awful lot of people:

This stacked list REALLY makes you wonder why more people aren’t pushing for worldwide access to this life-changing peptide!

Selank Dosage

The only reliable source for a Selank dosage comes from world-class peptide physician Dr. William Seeds, who recommends two separate routes in his book “Peptide Protocols, Volume 1”:

  • Subcutaneous Injection: 100-300 mcg of Selank once a day
  • Intranasally (via nose spray): 750-1,000 mcg once a day, spread out over several doses if needed

However, some people report experiencing the anti-anxiety effects of the Selank peptide by using as little as 250 mcg administered intranasally.

Your results will vary as everybody is biochemically unique, but I personally would not go beyond Dr. Seeds’ recommendations as it is possible to get desensitized to a peptide such as Selank.

As always, find the minimum effective dose needed to achieve satisfactory results and then slowly work your way up.

How Long Does Selank Take to Work and How Long Does it Last?

When I spoke to Christopher Mercer of Limitless Life Nootropics, he gave me the following advice on finding the right dose of Selank:

“If you have a nasal spray bottle containing 30 mg of Selank, it will contain around 100 sprays (or 300 mcg per spray). Like you said, start low and go from tehre. 

Selank is extremely safe and virtually impossible to hurt yourself with. You should notice the effects within about 20 minutes and they last for 12 hours or so. In my view, the effects become more pronounced with each passing day)”

If I had to go with either dosing option, I would probably go with the intranasal route.

After all, it appears to be the one heavily suggested by the scientists at the Institute for Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

“Rapid penetration through blood brain barrier (so, lower doses may be administered);

High bioavailability (92.8% of active ingredient)

Fast clinical effect (the drug is detected in plasma and brain tissues in 30 sec and 2 min after administration, respectively)

Concentration in archeocortex and interbrain (i.e., Selank targets)

Long-term action (20-24 h).”

And so long as you’re going to be spraying your nostrils, this Reddit guide is a great primer on how to properly use a nasal spray and store your Selank solution.

Self-Decode’s own review of the literature on Selank agrees with the observations from the Russian scientists and Christopher Mercer, noting the peptide only had a half-life of 2-10 minutes when studies conducted in vitro/vivo and rats were conduced.

To conclude:

How long for Selank to work? No longer than 20 minutes and for some people it could be less than 10 minutes.

How long does Selank last? Anywhere from 12-24 hours, although I wouldn’t be surprised if maximal efficacy is reached at the 6 hour mark.

Do you need to continue Selank? A “yes” if you’re using the intranasal version, and a “no” if you are using a Selank injection dosage administered to subcutaneous fat.

Selank Side Effects & Safety Profile

Unfortunately, we don’t know a whole lot about the side effects of Selank.

If you talk to the most enthusiastic peptide advocates, you’ll hear that Selank is virtually free from adverse events:

“Selank has a low toxicity profile. An overdose of 500 times higher than the normal level has been proven harmless for humans. Large majority of researchers are reporting that it is a ‘side effect free’ compound.” (Source)

“None of the studies that examined the effects of Selank in humans reported any negative side effects in their abstracts. It would be expected that if there were any serious negative side effects from Selank, it would have been stated in the abstracgts of the studies. The full texts of these studies are not available online.” (Source)

I wasn’t able to find a reliable source for the claim of test subjects failing to experience any significant risk of toxicity after taking 500 times the standard dose, so take it with a grain of salt.

All I could locate were two studies saying anything on the matter – one examining the toxicity of Selank in mouse-derived embryonic stem cells, and one comparing the utility of Selank to benzodiazepines:

“In some respects, Selank is superior to conventional benzodiazepine tranquilizers; specifically, it provokes neither side effects [such as withdrawal] nor addiction. Selank is successfully used to suppress apprehensiveness and anxiety in neurotic patients and to improve memory and learning in healthy persons” (Source)

“These peptides in concentrations of 10 and 0.1 μM, respectively, and Semax (10 and 0.1 μM) significantly increased the survival rate of mouse embryonic stem cells (serum deprivation)… Our results indicate that these peptide compounds do not produce toxic effect during the embryonic and fetal period of life.” (Source)

Which means the only way to know what will happen to YOU is by using Selank for 2-4 weeks at minimum (ideally 90 days) and seeing how you respond to the peptide.

Some of the anecdotal Selank side effects I’ve seen reported include:

* NOTE: While some preliminary studies make a connection between higher BDNF levels and hair loss (here and here), there’s nowhere near enough evidence to make this assertion

For the time being, I would recommend you DO NOT combine Selank with other peptides or nootropics as you want to examine what it will do to your mental state on its own. 

Plus, there’s no way to tell if Selank will have unwanted side effects when combined with other peptides or any other drug meant to elevate/depress your mood.

Where to Buy Selank

Unfortunately, I could not find a legitimate peptides vendor who sells Selank.

However, I would HIGHLY recommend Limitless Life Nootropics if you want to get your hands on two analogs that may be more potent: N-Acetyl Selank (NA-Selank) and N-Acetyl Selank Amidate (NA-Selank Amidate).

Use code JAY15 to get 15% off your order!

I’ll briefly touch on why these analogs are different from the original Selank molecule…

NA-Selank has an acetyl group attached to the N-terminus end of the peptide (hence “N-Acetyl”), which leads to better blood-brain barrier penetration and a more stable intermediate peptide when it is broken down in the bloodstream.

NA-Selank Amidate has the N-Acetyl group AND an amide group attached to the C-terminus end of the peptide, further enhancing Selank’s metabolic stability:

“N-terminal acetylation and C-terminal amidation reduce the overall charge of a peptide; therefore, its overall solubility might decrease. However, the stability of the peptide could also be increased because the terminal acetylation/amidation generates a closer mimic of the native protein. Therefore, these modifications might increase the biological activity of a peptide.”

In other words, the analogs may be stronger, faster-acting, and therefore more potent.

But please remember that Selank has been studied for decades and has been tested in several human studies (such as this one).

NA-Selank and NA-Selank Amidate are new experimental compounds and have yet to be studied in a laboratory and/or clinical setting, so keep this in mind when you use them.

While some people claim the Selank analogs can calm them down very quickly (here and here), you will have to use all of them and decide which variant works best for you.

I would strongly advise using NA-Selank or NA-Selank Amidate at the lowest dose possible (ex. one single nasal spray from a 10 mg bottle, once a day for seven days) and then gradually adjusting your dose from there. 

Additional Reading Resources for Selank

I’ve put together everything I could legitimately find on Selank and what the Russians have discovered about it, but there’s only so much you can take from the English-speaking world.

So if you want to dive deeper into the world of Selank, check out these resources…

A compilation of every single study on Selank done to date (likely excluding the ones which are written in Russian and have yet to be accurately translated into English)

Dr. William Seeds’ two podcasts on Selank – using the peptide with a low platelet count, and why Selank’s applications are far greater than improved mental health.

Ryan Smith of TruDiagnostic talks about why Selank may be clinically effective for both anxiety and depression.

These two pieces (here and here) are a historical deep-dive into the discovery of Selank and its anti-anxiety properties, dating all the way back to the 70s.

And as always…

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