Epithalon

Epithalon (also spelled Epitalon, and referred to as AEDG) is a synthetic tetrapeptide with the sequence Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly. It was created by Vladimir Khavinson at the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology as the isolated active fragment of Epithalamin, a crude peptide extract of the bovine pineal gland that Russian researchers had been studying since the 1970s. At four amino acids it is one of the smallest peptides in common research use, which is why vials are dosed in whole milligrams rather than the micrograms typical of GH secretagogues.

The mechanism that made Epithalon well known is telomerase induction. In a 2003 Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine paper, Khavinson and colleagues reported that Epithalon activated telomerase in cultured human fetal fibroblasts and produced telomere elongation, and a follow-up 2004 paper described cells surpassing the normal Hayflick division limit. These are cell culture findings, not human longevity outcomes, and that distinction matters: no controlled human trial has demonstrated telomere lengthening or extended lifespan in people taking Epithalon.

The second mechanism is pineal and circadian. Epithalamin, the parent extract, was shown to restore age-related decline in nocturnal melatonin secretion and to normalize circadian cortisol and melatonin rhythms in older subjects. Epithalon is understood to act as a peptide bioregulator on the same axis, which is the reason improved sleep quality is the most consistently reported subjective effect, and the reason most protocols place the injection in the evening rather than the morning.

The animal and long-term human data comes largely from one research group, which is the main reason to read it cautiously. Anisimov and Khavinson reported that Epitalon reduced biomarkers of aging and spontaneous tumor incidence in female SHR mice (Biogerontology 2003). A 15-year follow-up of elderly patients given the pineal preparation reported reduced mortality relative to controls (Bull Exp Biol Med 2011). This work is real and indexed, but it is largely single-group, largely Russian-language, and has not been independently replicated at scale in the West.

Practical handling: Epithalon is supplied lyophilized, most commonly in 10 mg or 50 mg vials. Reconstitute with bacteriostatic water added slowly down the vial wall, then swirl, never shake. A 10 mg vial with 1 mL of BAC water gives 10 mg/mL, so a 5 mg dose is 0.5 mL, which is 50 units on a U-100 insulin syringe. The calculator above does this conversion for whatever vial and BAC volume you actually have. Store the reconstituted vial at 2–8°C and use within 28 days. Epithalon is not FDA-approved for any indication and is sold for research purposes only.