Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide (VIP)

Also known as: VIP, aviptadil

Wellness

In plain English

VIP is a natural signaling peptide that widens blood vessels and calms inflammation. As a nasal spray it is used in some wellness and chronic-inflammatory protocols. In small, mostly open-label medical studies (for sarcoidosis and pulmonary hypertension) it appeared safe and had anti-inflammatory or blood-vessel effects, but it is not FDA-approved for these uses and the evidence is early.

The science

Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP, pharmaceutical name aviptadil) is a 28-amino-acid neuropeptide with vasodilatory, bronchodilatory, and immunoregulatory actions. In an open-label phase 2 study, 4 weeks of nebulized VIP in sarcoidosis reduced bronchoalveolar TNF-α and increased regulatory T cells, with good tolerability (Prasse et al., 2010); inhaled aviptadil produced modest, transient pulmonary vasodilation in pulmonary hypertension (Leuchte et al., 2008). Evidence is early-phase and small; intranasal VIP for chronic inflammatory/"biotoxin" protocols is not FDA-approved and lacks large controlled trials.

References

• Prasse A et al., Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2010
• Leuchte HH et al., Eur Respir J 2008