Epithalon vs Thymalin
There is no winner on this page. What is set side by side is the published record behind each one, which is the part the two are rarely compared on.
Longevity and bioregulatorsImmune and thymic
These two share a cohort, which is worth knowing before either survival figure is read. The 266 person paper cited for both is not one trial of 266 people: Khavinson and Morozov 2003 pooled 94 women at a St Petersburg veterans home randomised four ways, a separate 20 given both agents every year for six years, and 152 people in Kiev randomised three ways on a different schedule. The famous 4.1 fold is that group of 20 against a control arm of 22, four deaths against eighteen. Each agent also had an arm of 24 on its own, and those ran at 11 and 10 deaths over the six years, so the number both compounds are marketed on comes from the combined arm rather than from either alone.
| Field | Epithalon | Thymalin |
|---|---|---|
| What a trial gave | 0.5 mg a day, sprayed under the tongueIvko 2021, 20 women on a 20 day spray, the only randomised study of the four unit chain | 10 mg a day for 5 to 10 days, injected into a muscleThe Russian label, and every published human use I could open across 25 years |
| What circulates | 10 mg a dose under the skin, 50 or 100 mg a course, one to two times a year | 10 mg a day for 5 to 10 days, injected under the skin |
| The gap | Above the studied dose | Lands on a studied dose |
| How long it lasts | I could not find one, in any species. The entry's author found no pharmacokinetic study of this compound at all, which is the kind of study that measures where a dose goes and how fast it disappears, so how long a dose lasts, whether the intact four unit chain survives being sprayed under the tongue or injected under the skin, and what fraction of it reaches any tissue are all unmeasured. | I could not find one, in any species. My searches returned no pharmacokinetic study of thymalin by any route, which is the kind of study that measures where a dose goes and how fast it disappears, and for an extract with no defined molecule there is no single analyte to measure anyway. |
| Route studied | In people, three published studies: two sprays under the tongue in night shift workers, and one injection into the tissue around the eyeball. The only one of the three with a dose I could point to is 0.5 mg a day for 20 days under the tongue. In mice, injected under the skin, 1.0 microgram per mouse on five consecutive days each month. | Into a muscle, in every human study I could open: 10 mg daily for 10 days in the geroprotection cohort and in the Chita COVID-19 trial, and 10 mg daily for 5 days in the St Petersburg COVID-19 study. I searched PubMed for thymalin and subcutaneous and got 8 records; one 1998 paper gives thymalin under the skin to CBA mice and broiler chickens and reports it stimulated the immune response only at the injection site. |
| Route used | Injected under the skin, at home. The entry's author found no published study giving it to a human by that route, and it is the route the whole community convention runs on. | Under the skin, at home. The label lists injection into a muscle and no other route, and I found no published human study giving thymalin under the skin. |
| Vial sizes | 10 mg | 10 mg |
The distance, stated
Above the studied dose
Epithalon
Twenty times the only dose the four unit chain has been given a person, and by a route no published study was found using. Trace the 10 mg and it lands on the 2003 extract paper, whose St Petersburg cohort gave 10 mg into muscle daily for 10 days, 100 mg a course, digit for digit the circulating schedule. The agent in that trial was Epithalamin, a bovine pineal extract that FDA states is a different substance, and no vendor or clinic page was found deriving the 10 mg from any study of the chain itself.
Lands on a studied dose
Thymalin
Nothing drifted on quantity and everything drifted on route. Ten milligrams sits inside the label's own 5 to 20 mg range, is one whole vial, and is the dose in all five published human uses I could open, with the course arithmetic landing inside the label's 30 to 100 mg range too. The label lists injection into a muscle and no other route, every human dose I found in a paper went that way, and I found no published human study giving thymalin under the skin. One vendor protocol page prints 30 units and calls it about 30 micrograms; thirty units is 0.3 mL, and a 10 mg vial made up in the 1 to 2 mL the label specifies holds 3 mg or 1.5 mg in that volume.
What people get wrong
Epithalon
The costly mistake is the one letter. The 266 person survival paper, the 4.1 fold mortality figure and the later Kiev follow up are all real research on real patients, and every bit of it was done with Epithalamin, the cow pineal extract. Read the 266 carefully, though, because it is three cohorts added together rather than one trial of 266 people: 94 women at a St Petersburg veterans home split four ways, a separate 20 given both extracts every year for six years, and 152 people in Kiev split three ways on a different schedule. Everything in that paper went into muscle; the later Kiev follow up does not state a route. The famous 4.1 fold is the group of 20 against the St Petersburg control arm of 22, which in counts is 4 deaths against 18, and the arm on the extract alone, 24 patients, had a six year death rate of 45.8 percent, 11 deaths. Real randomisation, real numbers, small arms, different substance. The 10 mg figure comes from the same paper: its St Petersburg cohort gave 10 mg into muscle daily for 10 days, 100 mg a course, which is the circulating Russian schedule digit for digit, and its Kiev cohort gave 10 mg into muscle in five doses, 50 mg a course, which is the other circulating one. The entry's author found no vendor or clinic page that derives that 10 mg from any study of the four unit chain.
Thymalin
Two numbers get repeated and both need reading carefully. The first is 266, which is not a trial. Khavinson and Morozov 2003 pooled three cohorts at two institutions: 94 women at a St Petersburg war veterans home randomised four ways, a separate 20 given two agents every year for six years, and 152 people in Kiev randomised three ways on a different schedule. Twenty four people received Thymalin on its own, and in that arm 10 of 24 died over six years against 18 of 22 on placebo. The second is that Thymalin halved hospital mortality, which comes from one trial in Chita and from a secondary endpoint in it. That trial met one of its three primary endpoints and missed the other two, and the treated group took slightly longer to improve.
Every figure above is carried across from each compound’s entry, which is where the citations live.
All 65 compounds on one page at what circulates vs what was studied, or pick another two to compare.