MOTS-c Dosage Chart and Calculator: How Much to Take and When It Matters

MOTS-c is a 16-amino-acid peptide that mitochondria make from their own DNA, studied for how muscle takes up glucose and burns fat and for exercise capacity. Unlike most research peptides it is dosed in milligrams, and the protocols in circulation split two ways: a small draw every day, or 5 to 10mg spread over one to three injections a week. On a 10mg vial, that choice decides whether it lasts three weeks or three days.

Simms Research stocks MOTS-c in one size, a 10mg vial at $65, and every unit count below assumes that vial with 2mL of bac water added.

MOTS-c dosage calculator

Pick the vial, the water and the dose, and the calculator gives the units to draw on a U-100 insulin syringe. It opens on a 10mg vial with 2mL and a 5mg dose: 100 units, a full 1mL syringe.

MOTS-c dosage chart

Research protocols draw anywhere from 500mcg to 10mg of MOTS-c at a time, and the schedule sets the size. With 2mL of bac water in a 10mg vial, every 10 units on a U-100 insulin syringe holds 500mcg:

5mg is the draw most protocols are built on. At this mix it fills a 1mL insulin syringe to the top line, the 100 mark, and the 10mg once-a-week draw is the whole vial: two full syringes, one after the other. The daily rows are small by comparison, and 10 or 20 units reads most cleanly on a 0.3mL or 0.5mL syringe.

MOTS-c 10mg reconstitution and bac water

2mL. Every 10 units is then 500mcg and every full 1mL syringe is 5mg, so the chart reads straight off the syringe. MOTS-c is mixed with bacteriostatic water, sterile water preserved with 0.9% benzyl alcohol, which keeps a multi-dose vial clean through its weeks in the fridge.

Wipe both stoppers, let the water run down the inside wall of the vial rather than onto the cake, and swirl instead of shaking. The cake is gone in a minute or two, leaving liquid that looks no different from plain water. Label it with the day it was mixed, store it at 36 to 46°F (2 to 8°C) and use it up inside 28 days. The hub guide, how to reconstitute peptides, walks through each step for any vial.

A 10mL bottle of Simms Research’s Research Water ($20) covers five MOTS-c vials. What the benzyl alcohol does, and what plain sterile water lacks, is in the bac water guide.

MOTS-c daily vs weekly dosing

Both have a basis. The published studies mostly gave MOTS-c every day; the protocols in circulation mostly gather the week’s amount into two or three larger injections.

In the 2015 Cell Metabolism paper that first described MOTS-c, mice on a high-fat diet got a daily injection for eight weeks and gained less weight than untreated mice, and a single week of daily injections made their muscle take up glucose more readily. The 2021 Nature Communications follow-up gave young mice daily injections for two weeks before treadmill tests, and gave old mice the peptide three times a week from late life onward, which improved their physical capacity. The only trial in people tested CB4211, a modified MOTS-c, at 25mg once a day for four weeks.

Community protocols went the other way. The most common is 5mg two or three times a week, and 10mg once a week is the leanest version. The daily camp draws 500mcg to 1mg every day, reasoning that a short-lived peptide is better kept steady. The case against daily use, argued in a widely watched 2026 video, rests on AMPK, the energy-shortage signal MOTS-c switches on: it works against mTOR, the pathway that builds muscle after training, so a signal that never switches off could blunt gains. No study has put the two rhythms side by side in people.

In practice, spaced injections are the more common choice and match the late-life mouse work, while daily draws sit closer to the metabolic studies and the CB4211 trial.

MOTS-c dosage per day and per week

500mcg to 1mg a day on daily protocols; 5 to 15mg across the week on spaced ones. Multiply the draw by the injections and the weekly totals line up like this:

Daily protocols that start low open at 200 to 500mcg and climb toward 1mg over the first weeks. Spaced protocols often open at 5mg twice a week to judge tolerance, then move to three times. None of them scale the amount by body weight or sex.

MOTS-c protocol and cycle length

Four to eight weeks on, then roughly as long off. The protocol most guides share is 5mg two or three times a week for four to six weeks, followed by a four-to-six-week break; eight weeks is the long end.

The break is a convention rather than a finding. It is meant to keep the AMPK signal from dulling and to leave a clean window for comparing notes before the next block, but no study has compared cycle lengths. The mouse studies ran from a few days to eight weeks, and the late-life study kept its three-times-a-week schedule going from old age onward without a pause.

Best time of day to take MOTS-c

Morning, or 30 to 60 minutes before training. MOTS-c is one of the body’s own exercise signals: when young men rode a stationary bike in the 2021 study, the MOTS-c in their thigh muscle rose almost twelvefold, and the level in their blood climbed by half during the ride and settled back to baseline within four hours of rest.

Protocols line the injection up with that window, ahead of training on training days and in the morning on rest days, and many run it fasted, before breakfast. Evening injections are the ones user reports tie to a restless night, which is the other reason the draw stays early.

How long a 10mg vial of MOTS-c lasts

Twenty days at the bottom of the daily range, and less than a week on the most common spaced protocol:

None of these schedules runs into the 28-day limit on a mixed vial; even 500mcg a day empties it in 20 days. On the spaced protocols a vial is used up within the week it is mixed.

MOTS-c 40mg

A 40mg vial holds four 10mg vials’ worth and is sold for the spaced protocols. The milligrams per injection stay the same, but the units change with the water, so the calculator gives them. At 5mg twice a week a 40mg vial lasts four weeks, right at the 28-day mark for a mixed vial; at 5mg three times a week it is gone in under three.

How long before MOTS-c starts working

One to two weeks for the first measurable changes in the research, and four weeks or more for anything on the scale. Mice responded to insulin better after seven days of daily injections and ran further on the treadmill after fourteen, and daily injections held back weight gain on a high-fat diet over eight weeks.

In the CB4211 trial, four weeks of daily injections lowered blood glucose and cut the liver enzymes ALT by 21% and AST by 28%, while body weight only trended down. User reports follow the same order: steadier energy in the first two weeks, easier training by weeks three to four, body composition from around week four to six.

MOTS-c side effects

Most runs report nothing beyond the injection itself. CB4211 was well tolerated across both stages of its trial, 65 healthy adults and then 20 adults with obesity and fatty liver, with no serious adverse events. In the second stage, the only side effect in more than one in ten people taking it was a short-lived, mild to moderate reaction where it went in.

Reports from people running MOTS-c add a brief sting or warmth at the injection, a passing flush, headache or tiredness around the first doses, and lighter sleep when it is taken late in the day. A racing heartbeat turns up less often. Lower first doses and morning timing are how protocols handle these. The longest human data, the CB4211 trial, covers four weeks.

MOTS-c lab results by batch

Each of the two published MOTS-c batches came in above 10mg a vial. Tested at an independent ISO-certified lab in July 2026, the latest had three vials weighed and run separately:

Purity came from RP-HPLC and identity was confirmed by LC-MS. The batch also passed its endotoxin screen, showed no arsenic, cadmium, lead or mercury, and grew nothing on the sterility test. The batch before it, tested in March 2026, held 11.44mg at 99.88% purity; its certificate predates the contaminant screens.

For the chart, an 11.02mg vial in 2mL puts about 5.5mg in a full 100-unit syringe rather than 5mg. Entering 11.02mg as the calculator’s peptide in the vial gives units matched to this batch. The MOTS-c lab results page holds both certificates in full, and the COA reading guide goes through what each line means.

Frequently asked questions

What do I mix MOTS-c with?

Bacteriostatic water: 2mL for a 10mg vial, which makes 10 units 500mcg and 100 units 5mg.

How many units is 5mg of MOTS-c?

100 units, one full 1mL insulin syringe, at 2mL in the 10mg vial. 2.5mg is 50 units and 1mg is 20.

Can MOTS-c be taken every day?

Yes. Daily protocols draw 500mcg to 1mg, 10 to 20 units on the syringe, and the mouse studies and the CB4211 trial mostly ran on daily injections.

Does MOTS-c need to be refrigerated?

Mixed, yes: in the fridge and used within 28 days. Unmixed, the powder is stable at room temperature long enough to travel without cold packs; the peptide refrigeration guide has the details for both forms.

Does MOTS-c work without exercise?

In mice, yes: the high-fat-diet and insulin results came from animals that were not trained. Research protocols still time it around training, because exercise is when the body raises MOTS-c on its own.

Is MOTS-c good for weight loss?

In mice it held back weight gain on a high-fat diet (Lee, Cell Metabolism, 2015). In people, the CB4211 trial saw lower glucose and liver enzymes after four weeks and only a trend in body weight. Protocols aimed at weight most often run it alongside a GLP-1 class peptide.

Can MOTS-c be stacked with retatrutide?

Yes, in separate vials, each at its own dose; the retatrutide dosage guide covers the retatrutide side. Simms Research’s Trifecta Bundle puts MOTS-c 10mg beside retatrutide 20mg and tesamorelin 10mg. The other common partner is SS-31, the second mitochondrial peptide, laid out in the SS-31 dosage chart.

Can MOTS-c be taken orally or as a nasal spray?

The research gave it by injection: every mouse study and the CB4211 trial. Nasal sprays are sold, but the doses in this guide are for the injected peptide.

Do women need a lower MOTS-c dose?

No. Protocols give men and women the same milligrams; nothing is adjusted for sex or weight.

Is MOTS-c FDA approved?

No, and it sits on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s prohibited list. Simms Research sells it strictly for lab research.