The Russian-developed longevity tetrapeptide — telomerase activation in cultured human cells (Khavinson 2003, independently reproduced 2025) and circadian/melatonin restoration in older adults. The human and lifespan claims remain single-lineage; no human telomere data exists.
Epitalon (also called Epithalon) is a synthetic tetrapeptide — Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly — developed in the 1980s at the Russian Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology. It was designed to mimic epithalamin, a bovine pineal extract. In 2017 the AEDG sequence was itself detected among the tetrapeptides within that pineal polypeptide complex by mass spectrometry (PMID 29124531), which is the basis for calling Epitalon the extract's active fragment rather than merely an analogue of it.
It is the most-studied longevity peptide in Russia. Vladimir Khavinson's group has published two decades of data on Epitalon — primary findings include telomerase activation in cultured fibroblasts (Khavinson 2003) and melatonin/circadian restoration in older adults (Korkushko, Anisimov). Mortality-related findings include +12.3% maximum-lifespan extension in SHR mice (Anisimov 2003), with no significant change in mean lifespan. The literature is single-lineage — most claims trace to the Khavinson group; broad independent replication outside that lineage is limited.
Not FDA approved. Not WADA prohibited. Available as a research chemical.
One published in-vitro study (Khavinson 2003, PMID 12937682) reported telomerase activation in cultured human fibroblasts that extended their proliferative capacity beyond the Hayflick limit. This is the foundation of the "telomerase peptide" framing in community marketing, and for two decades it stood alone. It was independently reproduced in 2025 by a group with no Khavinson affiliation (Al-Dulaimi 2025, Brunel University London, PMID 40908429): 1 mcg/mL of Epitalon over three weeks raised hTERT mRNA and telomerase enzyme activity and lengthened telomeres in normal human fibroblasts and mammary epithelial cells. So the mechanism is no longer single-lineage. Two caveats carry more weight than the headline. First, the same paper found that in two breast-cancer lines telomeres lengthened by a different route — ALT, not telomerase — which is a safety finding, not a benefit; see Side Effects. Second, all of this is cell culture at microgram-per-millilitre concentrations. No human study has ever measured telomere length after Epitalon dosing, so whether any of it translates to in-vivo human telomere biology remains empirically unanswered.
Increases nocturnal melatonin output and supports circadian-rhythm restoration in animal models (aged rhesus monkeys, Goncharova 2001 PMID 11550036). The "restored circadian rhythm in older adults" framing extrapolates these animal findings to humans.
Penetrates cell nuclei and modulates expression of genes involved in antioxidant defense, DNA repair, and circadian regulation. Mechanistic work is largely from the Khavinson lineage; molecular-docking and nuclear-penetration data are documented, but in-cell promoter occupancy in vivo has not been independently mapped.
| Benefit | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Melatonin / circadian (animal) | Increased nocturnal melatonin and circadian restoration in aged rhesus monkeys (Goncharova 2001, PMID 11550036). Translation to circadian/sleep effects in humans is extrapolated from animal data. |
| Telomerase activation (in vitro) | First reported in cultured human fibroblasts by the Khavinson group (Khavinson 2003, PMID 12937682), then unreplicated outside that lineage for two decades. An independent UK lab reproduced it in 2025 (Al-Dulaimi 2025, PMID 40908429) — hTERT upregulation, increased telomerase activity and telomere lengthening in normal human fibroblasts and mammary epithelial cells at 1 mcg/mL over three weeks. A 2025 erratum replaced that paper's figures (PMID 41240216); the paper itself stands. Corroborating signal in animal cells: Epitalon-activated telomerase improved bovine oocyte maturation (Ullah 2025, PMID 39788414). All of it is cell culture — no human telomere data exists. |
| Telomere lengthening in cancer cells (in vitro) | In the same 2025 paper, two breast-cancer lines lengthened telomeres via ALT (alternative lengthening of telomeres) rather than telomerase — roughly a 10-fold rise in ALT activity in 21NT and 3-fold in BT474, with no ALT activation in the normal cells. Listed here for completeness, not as a benefit: it cuts against the animal anticarcinogenic data and is the main reason the cancer-history caution below stands. |
| Lifespan (animal) | SHR mice: +12.3% maximum-lifespan extension and +13.3% last-decile lifespan; no significant change in mean lifespan (Anisimov 2003, PMID 14501183). Also note that total spontaneous tumor incidence was unchanged; only leukemia fell. |
| Mortality (human) — Epithalamin, not Epitalon | The human mortality figures circulating under Epitalon's name were produced with Epithalamin, the crude pineal extract. A 12-year study its authors describe as randomized, in elderly patients with coronary disease, reported 28% lower all-cause mortality and roughly halved cardiovascular mortality (Korkushko 2006, PMID 17426848). A separate 6–8 year follow-up of 266 elderly subjects reported a 1.6–1.8-fold mortality decrease with Epithalamin, and 2.5-fold combined with the thymic peptide Thymalin (Khavinson 2003, PMID 14523363). These are published and peer-reviewed — an earlier version of this page wrongly said no such publication existed — but they are Epithalamin, they come from the same single research lineage, and the abstracts describe no allocation concealment, blinding or pre-registration. They are not evidence that injecting Epitalon extends human life. |
| Cancer (animal) | SHR mice: ~6× reduction in spontaneous leukemia (Anisimov 2003, PMID 14501183); HER-2/neu transgenic mice: 3.7× reduction in HER-2 mRNA expression (Anisimov 2002, PMID 12209581). These are anticarcinogenic signals in whole animals. They sit alongside an opposite in-vitro signal (ALT activation in human breast-cancer lines, PMID 40908429) — see Side Effects. |
| Melatonin — restores rather than raises | The clearest statement of the "normalising" claim: in elderly subjects Epithalamin raised nocturnal melatonin in those whose pineal activity was already low, while in those with normal pineal function melatonin tended to fall (Korkushko 2004, PMID 15452611). The monkey work shows the same pattern — old animals responded, young animals did not (PMID 14743609). |
| Glucose / insulin (primate) | In old rhesus monkeys Epitalon lowered basal glucose and insulin, improved the glucose-disappearance rate and normalised insulin dynamics after a glucose load. No effect in young animals (Goncharova 2005, PMID 15664732). |
| Antioxidant / retinopathy | Reduced oxidative-stress markers in aged-subject reports (Khavinson lineage). Used in Russian clinical practice for age-related retinal degeneration; no Western RCT. |
Note: Most human data come from Russian trials that have not been independently replicated in Western clinical programs.
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Start Tracking FreeNot medical advice. These figures describe what is reported in the literature and what practitioners and communities do — not a recommendation, and for most compounds here no human dose-finding study exists. Talk to a qualified healthcare provider.
The 5–10 mg/day protocol above is the community and vendor standard, and it is what this guide lists. It is worth knowing that it does not originate in research on Epitalon. It comes from Epithalamin, the crude bovine pineal extract that Epitalon was derived from. Epitalon is the isolated four-amino-acid sequence (AEDG) identified as the active component of that extract, and it is far more potent by weight.
The two were compared head-to-head in rhesus monkeys (Goncharova 2003, PMID 14743609). Epithalamin at 5 mg/animal/day for 10 days and Epitalon at 10 mcg/animal/day for 7–10 days both significantly raised night-time melatonin in old monkeys — and neither changed melatonin in young ones. That is roughly a 500-fold difference in dose for the same effect. The rodent lifespan work used the same order of magnitude: 1.0 mcg per mouse, about 30–40 mcg/kg (Anisimov 2003, PMID 14501183).
So a 5–10 mg/day protocol sits three to four orders of magnitude above the synthetic doses that produced the published animal results. Two honest readings of that. It may simply be far more than is needed — the monkey work suggests microgram-scale Epitalon does the job. Or the published animal doses may not translate to a human at all, in which case the community figure is as good a guess as any. What settles neither reading is evidence: there is no human dose-finding study for Epitalon at any dose. What can be said is that 5–10 mg has decades of community use behind it with essentially no toxicity signal, which is why it remains the standard here.
These are community-circulated ranges, not FDA- or trial-established doses. Lower protocols of 500 mcg – 1 mg/day also circulate and sit closer to the doses actually studied for synthetic Epitalon — see the provenance note below if you want to understand why the two differ so much.
Some users split the daily dose into 2× (AM + PM). There is no PK data supporting this; the rationale is theoretical.
Not medical advice. These figures describe what is reported in the literature and what practitioners and communities do — not a recommendation, and for most compounds here no human dose-finding study exists. Talk to a qualified healthcare provider.
50 mg vial + 2 mL BAC water = 25 mg/mL. Verify your vial’s unit of measure (mg vs. mcg) before drawing — much of the published animal literature uses microgram-range doses per animal, so a mislabeled vial could lead to a 1,000× dosing error.
| Dose | Volume | Syringe Units |
|---|---|---|
| 5 mg | 0.20 mL | 20 units |
| 10 mg | 0.40 mL | 40 units |
50 mg vial at 10 mg/day = 5 days; at 5 mg/day = 10 days. One 10-day cycle typically uses one 50 mg vial.
Pre-filled with a typical Epitalon setup. Edit any field — the draw updates live.
Insulin syringe — 100 units = 1 mL
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Few adverse events have been reported for Epitalon across decades of Russian clinical use and community use. Read that as an absence of reports rather than a demonstrated safety record: there is no Western RCT, no published pharmacovigilance, and the source literature is largely one research lineage, so mild or delayed effects would not necessarily have been captured.
The cancer picture is genuinely mixed, and the two sides point opposite ways. In whole animals, several published studies (PMIDs 12049808, 16634527, 12374906) reported anticarcinogenic effects — reduced colon tumor multiplicity and decreased spontaneous malignancy. In cultured human cancer cells, a 2025 independent study (PMID 40908429) found Epitalon lengthened telomeres in two breast-cancer lines by activating ALT, a telomere-maintenance mechanism cancer cells use to keep dividing — about 10-fold in one line, 3-fold in the other — while normal cells in the same experiment showed essentially none. The authors themselves flag this as unexpected and propose a mechanism they did not test. A cell line is not a tumour in a person, and neither result settles the question. If you have any cancer history, this is a conversation to have with an oncologist before starting, not something to resolve from a guide.
Epitalon is sold for research use only. If you are sourcing it for research, we recommend Lyvn — every batch third-party tested with the full laboratory panel published on the product page.
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For research use only. Not for human consumption. 21+.
Build your protocol, log every dose, monitor your body's response, and get reminders so you never miss a dose.
Start Tracking FreeNo. Epitalon (also Epithalon, Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly) is a synthetic tetrapeptide modeled after the pineal extract Epithalamin. It has never been FDA or EMA approved. In Russia it appears in secondary literature as a supplement-class (БАД) registration — not a drug approval. Sold in the US only as a research chemical.
Community protocols use 5–10 mg/day subcutaneously, 10–20 days per cycle, 2–4 cycles per year, and that is what this guide lists. Useful context on where that number came from: it does not originate in research on Epitalon — it comes from Epithalamin, the crude bovine pineal extract Epitalon was isolated from. The two were compared directly in rhesus monkeys: Epithalamin at 5 mg/animal/day and Epitalon at 10 mcg/animal/day produced the same rise in night-time melatonin (PMID 14743609), a roughly 500-fold difference for the same effect. The rodent lifespan work used about 30–40 mcg/kg. So the standard protocol sits three to four orders of magnitude above the synthetic doses that generated the published animal results. That may mean it is far more than necessary, or that animal dosing does not translate — no human dose-finding study exists for Epitalon at any dose to settle it. Lower protocols of 500 mcg – 1 mg/day also circulate for that reason.
A typical reconstitution is 10 mg of Epitalon + 2 mL of bacteriostatic water, yielding 5 mg/mL. A 5 mg dose draws to 1.00 mL (full 100-unit insulin syringe), 10 mg = 2.00 mL (use 3 mL syringe). Some users prefer 10 mg + 5 mL = 2 mg/mL so a 5 mg dose becomes 2.5 mL on a 3 mL syringe — gentler subcutaneous volume.
The published rodent data (multiple papers, single research lineage at the Saint Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology) show modest lifespan extension and reduced tumor incidence in tumor-prone mouse models. There is no human RCT of Epitalon for any aging or lifespan endpoint. The human "telomere lengthening" story circulating in community sources traces to Khavinson's in-vitro work in human somatic cells (PMID 12937682), which an independent UK group did reproduce in 2025 (PMID 40908429). That makes the cell-culture finding more solid than it was — but it is still cell culture. No study has measured telomere length in a person given Epitalon, and no study has measured human lifespan.
The honest answer is that the evidence points both ways. Animal data from the Khavinson/Anisimov lineage trends anticarcinogenic (reduced spontaneous tumor incidence, reduced metastasis, downregulation of HER-2/neu in a transgenic model) — opposite of what a casual "this raises growth signals" intuition would suggest. But a 2025 independent in-vitro study (PMID 40908429) found the opposite kind of signal in cultured human breast-cancer cells: Epitalon activated ALT, a telomere-maintenance route cancer cells use, roughly 10-fold in one line and 3-fold in another, with no such activation in normal cells. Cultured cancer lines and tumour-prone mice are two different models and neither is a person. Also worth weighing: the animal data is from one research lineage and used microgram-per-animal doses, while community human use is milligram-per-day. Patients with active malignancy or in post-treatment surveillance should consult oncology before starting.
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Disclaimer: This guide is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The compounds discussed are not FDA approved for human use. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before starting any new supplement or peptide protocol. StackTrax does not sell peptides or supplements directly — purchase links go to third-party vendors. StackTrax is not responsible for the products, quality, or business practices of any third-party vendor.
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StackTrax guides cover peptides and compounds that are not FDA-approved for the uses discussed. The dosing, reconstitution, and safety information is compiled from published research and community protocols for educational purposes only.
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