Pinealon (EDR tripeptide, Glu-Asp-Arg)
Pinealon: What The Studies Actually Say
Almost all pinealon research traces back to one Russian institute. The human studies are tiny and give no numbers anyone can check. The real numbers come from rats, mice and cells in a dish. Here is what they found.
Updated 22 September 2026
Before you read this
This page explains what published studies found. That is all it is. It is not medical advice, and it is not instructions for using anything. Nothing here is meant to find, treat, cure or stop any illness. The compounds discussed on this site, retatrutide included, are not approved by the FDA for use in people. Research compounds are sold for laboratory use only — not for use in humans or animals. A study tells you what happened to the people in it. It does not tell you what would happen to you. What you do with what you read here is your responsibility, so talk to a doctor first. This page is published by Ascend Vials, which sells research compounds.
Read the full guide
Confirm you have read the notice above and enter an email address. We will send you a link back to this guide, and sometimes an email when we publish a new one. You can unsubscribe any time.
Almost everything known about pinealon comes from one institute in Russia and its partners. Most of it was done in rats, mice and cells in a dish.
Here is what the research actually found. Every claim has a link. Read them yourself.
The 30-second version
- Pinealon is three amino acids joined together, made by an ageing institute in St. Petersburg, Russia.
- The human studies are small, written in Russian, and give no numbers you can check. Three of the five mixed pinealon with a second peptide.
- The only results with real numbers come from rats, mice and cells in a dish.
- In one human study, the researchers themselves reported a drop in the stem cells that make blood.
- Despite the name, no study we found links it to the pineal gland.
- It is not an approved medicine anywhere. In Russia it is registered as a dietary supplement.
- Nothing sold online has been shown to match what the studies used. No study has checked.
What it is
Pinealon is a lab-made peptide only three amino acids long: glutamic acid, aspartic acid and arginine. Scientists call it EDR. It comes from Vladimir Khavinson's group at the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology. Rejuvenation Research, 2011
The same group says it was isolated from Cortexin, a brain-protecting drug made of many peptides. Molecules, 2020
The name sounds like the pineal gland. No study we found ties it to that gland. On rat pineal-gland tissue in a dish, it did not switch on the growth and secretion markers that a different peptide did. Source
The human studies are small, in Russian, and have no numbers
We found five reports of pinealon in people. Four are short papers in a Russian journal, and only their summaries could be read. The fifth is known only second-hand, from a review by the developers.
| People | How long | Group that got nothing? | Pinealon on its own? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patients, 2015 | 32 | Not stated | Not described | No — mixed with Vesugen |
| Train crews, 2012 | Not stated | 2 weeks | Not described | Only pinealon named |
| Truck drivers, 2012 | Not stated | Not stated | Not described | No — mixed with Vesugen |
| Methods compared, 2016 | 110 | Not stated | Not described | No — mixed with Vesugen |
| Brain injury (review), 2020 | 72 | Not stated | No data | Added to normal treatment |
Read the whole table. Every blank is a number a real trial would have given you.
None of the summaries describes a fake-pill group, random assignment or blinding. None gives a number for how big any change was. So there is no chart of human results here. There is nothing honest to draw.
What the authors say they found:
- Train crews: better "biological age" scores and better adaptation, after 2 weeks. Adv Gerontol, 2012
- Truck drivers: better emotional-health scores and a lower risk of borderline mental disorders. The best result was pinealon plus Vesugen. How many drivers got peptides is not stated. Adv Gerontol, 2012
- 110 people: pinealon plus Vesugen did best on biological-age scores, ahead of massage and oxygen treatments. Adv Gerontol, 2016
- 32 patients aged 41 to 83: slower ageing on biological-age tests. Vesugen had the clearer effect. The summary lists 18 men and 12 women. That makes 30, not 32. Adv Gerontol, 2015
- 72 brain-injury patients: better memory and shorter, milder headaches. We could not find the original paper, so none of it can be checked. Molecules, 2020
The real numbers come from rats, mice and dishes
Rat pups
Pregnant rats were fed extra methionine, an amino acid. That pushed their homocysteine more than five times higher. Some mothers also got pinealon first. Then the pups were tested. Int J Clin Exp Med, 2012
| Normal pups | Mother had high homocysteine | Same, plus pinealon | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weight at 10 days | 23.05 g | 17.86 g | 25.03 g |
| Time to find a hidden platform (first swim, day 2) | 112 s | 170 s | 137 s |
| Brain cells killed by hydrogen peroxide in a dish | — | 17.7% | 7.0% |
| Pups' own homocysteine | 5.6 µM | 9.8 µM | 10.5 µM |
Pups of pinealon mothers were heavier, found the platform faster, and fewer of their brain cells died in the dish test. But by the fifth swim, every group did equally well. And pinealon did not lower the pups' homocysteine. The groups were small: 23 animals per group in the maze, and pups from at least two litters for the cell test. Int J Clin Exp Med, 2012
Alzheimer's-model mice
Mice bred to get an Alzheimer's-like disease got pinealon every day for 2 months, 10 mice per group. Their brain cells got back the normal number of spines, the tiny bumps where nerve cells connect. The count rose from 11.31 to 12.64 per 10 micrometres, or 11%. Normal mice had 12.89. But a lab test of how well those connections strengthen, called LTP, did not improve significantly. Pharmaceuticals, 2021
In 2025 the journal printed a correction: two figures in the paper were the same image, described differently. The authors say their conclusions stand. Correction, 2025
Nerve cells in a dish
Skin cells from three women aged 61, 66 and 68 were turned into nerve cells. After 10 days with pinealon, their branches were 46% longer in total than in untreated cells. The paper also reports less DNA damage. That result was not statistically significant (p = 0.0566), yet the summary states it as a finding. Int J Mol Sci, 2024
In mouse nerve cells damaged with amyloid, a protein tied to Alzheimer's, pinealon raised "mushroom" spines by 71%, back to normal. Bull Exp Biol Med, 2017
How it is supposed to work
These are ideas from the developers. None has been confirmed in a person.
Fewer free radicals — or more. The developers' 2011 study says pinealon held back free radicals in stressed cells. Rejuvenation Research, 2011 Their own earlier paper found no direct antioxidant effect, and higher free-radical levels inside cells. Adv Gerontol, 2008
A slower stress signal. In stressed rat brain cells, a signal called ERK1/2 switched on within 2.5 minutes. With pinealon present, the rise came 20 minutes later. Molecules, 2020
Acting on DNA. Tagged pinealon got inside the nucleus of HeLa cells, a human cancer cell line, and stuck to pieces of DNA in test tubes. Biochemistry (Moscow), 2011 Two later papers disagree on where on the DNA it would sit. 2019 · 2017 None of this has been tested in a living human brain.
Side effects: nobody has counted
No controlled trial of pinealon has been published, and ClinicalTrials.gov lists no registered studies. So there is no proper record of side effects. ClinicalTrials.gov
Blood. In the 32-patient study, the researchers found pro-oxidant activity, the opposite of an antioxidant. They also found a drop in CD34+ cells, the stem cells that make new blood. They called it significant inhibition of blood-cell production. Patients took Vesugen too, so it is unclear which peptide did it. Nobody has followed it up. Adv Gerontol, 2015
Old rats. The peptides helped more rats survive a blocked-artery operation. But rats given pinealon first slept more, explored less and moved worse. Pinealon also raised caspase-3, an enzyme that drives cell death, even in rats that had a fake operation. Adv Gerontol, 2011
Cell growth. The title of the developers' own cell study says pinealon works partly by "activating proliferative processes": getting cells to multiply. One of the cell types tested came from a tumour. No studies were found on cancer risk, pregnancy or fertility, or long-term safety. Rejuvenation Research, 2011
The label. The Russian label says not to use it in pregnancy or breastfeeding, with intolerance, or, for the tablets, with a tendency to bowel problems. Its side-effects line says "no data". That means none were recorded. It does not mean it was proven safe. Russian supplement register
Who did the research
Nearly all pinealon research comes from Khavinson's institute or its partners. Much of it appeared in Advances in Gerontology. The institute founded that journal and publishes it. The editor-in-chief, G.A. Ryzhak, is the institute's deputy director. Journal page Ryzhak is also an author on several pinealon papers. Neurochem J, 2020 · Adv Gerontol, 2013
The pinealon in the 2021 mouse study was supplied by GARMONIA, the same name as the company that holds the Russian supplement registration. Pharmaceuticals, 2021 · Russian supplement register
None of that makes the results wrong. It means almost nobody outside the group has checked them.
Is it approved?
Pinealon is not approved as a medicine anywhere we could find.
- Russia: registered as a dietary supplement, not a medicine, in November 2022. It comes as capsules and tablets. The listing was last updated in December 2022, so we could not confirm it is still active. Source
- United States: not approved by the FDA for any use. It is not on FDA's list of substances nominated for compounding either (checked 22 September 2026). FDA
- European Union: no approval found. The European Medicines Agency's search was blocked by a security check, so read this as "no record found", not a confirmed no.
What is still unknown
- Any randomized, blinded trial with a fake-pill group. None has been published.
- Whether swallowed pinealon reaches the blood or the brain. The rat and mouse studies above used injections, and how it enters cells has only been modelled on a computer. Computer-model study
- How much, if any, is safe in a person. Animal studies used amounts thousands of times apart. Rats, 2012 · Mice, 2021 · Rats, 2020
- Cancer risk, effects on pregnancy, and long-term safety.
- What the drop in blood stem cells means.
- Whether it does anything for memory in people with Alzheimer's. That has never been tested.
What is in the bottle is not what was studied
One more thing.
Almost every result on this page came from the developers' own group and its partners.
No study has ever shown that a product sold online as "pinealon" is the same thing. Not the same purity. Not the same strength. Not even proof it is the same molecule. Even the Russian supplement's label does not say how much peptide is in each capsule. Russian supplement register
So take every number on this page for what it is. It describes what happened in those studies. It describes nothing else.
How to check a number yourself
You are going to see more claims about pinealon. In a reel. In a comment. On somebody's store page.
Here is how to tell a real one from a marketing one. Five questions. About ten seconds each.
1. Is there a link to a study?
A real number comes from a paper you can open. No link means it is a claim, not a result. Search "pinealon" on pubmed.gov yourself.
2. Was it people, animals or a dish?
Most pinealon numbers come from rats, mice or cells. A dish tells you what a cell did. It does not tell you what a person will feel.
3. How many, and was there a group that got nothing?
Some human reports here do not even say how many people took it. None describes a fake-pill group. Without one, nobody can tell how much of the change came from the peptide.
4. Was it pinealon on its own?
Three of the five human reports mixed pinealon with Vesugen and did not separate the results. A result for a mix is not a result for pinealon.
5. Who did the research, and who published it?
Here, nearly always the same institute, often in its own journal.
Now run those five on this page
Every number above links to its paper. The human studies are in the table, blanks and all. You were told which results come from animals and dishes, which mixed two peptides, and who ran them. The human claims have no numbers next to them, because the papers give none.
That is the whole difference: a number you can check, and a number you are asked to believe.
This page has a date on it, near the top. If a proper trial of pinealon is ever published, this page changes.
Read the studies yourself
- Cell study, Rejuvenation Research 2011 — the free-radical and cell-growth claims
- Developers' review, Molecules 2020 — free to read; Cortexin, ERK1/2 and the brain-injury report
- Rat pup study, Int J Clin Exp Med 2012 — free to read; the numbers in the rat table
- Alzheimer's-model mice, Pharmaceuticals 2021 — free to read · its 2025 correction
- Nerve cells from older women, Int J Mol Sci 2024 — free to read
- Amyloid dish study, Bull Exp Biol Med 2017
- Free radicals in a dish, Adv Gerontol 2008
- Old rats and blocked arteries, Adv Gerontol 2011
- Pineal-gland tissue study
- Pinealon in the cell nucleus, Biochemistry (Moscow) 2011
- DNA groove papers: 2019 · 2017
- How it may get into cells, a computer model
- Papers co-authored by the journal's editor: Neurochem J 2020 · Adv Gerontol 2013
- Human reports: 32 patients, 2015 · train crews, 2012 · truck drivers, 2012 · methods compared, 2016
- Russian supplement register listing
- Advances in Gerontology, journal page
- FDA list of substances nominated for compounding
- ClinicalTrials.gov search for pinealon
Anything above about amounts describes what a study gave to animals, cells or enrolled people. This is not advice, a plan, or instructions. Pinealon is not an approved medicine. Research compounds are not for human or animal use.