GHK-Cu
PreclinicalA naturally occurring copper-binding tripeptide with a long history in topical skincare research. Injected use is not what the research studied.
Skin & hair · Anti-aging & longevity · Healing & recovery
Category
Anti-aging & longevity
The growth hormone secretagogues, NAD+ and the mitochondrial peptides, and the bioregulators. The category with the deepest measurement problem: almost nothing here has been tested against an outcome anyone actually cares about.
Four separate lines of work sit here, and they have less in common than the shared label suggests. The growth hormone secretagogues raise a hormone that falls with age. NAD+ and the mitochondrial peptides address cellular energy metabolism. The Khavinson bioregulators are a Russian tradition with its own literature. The senolytics try to clear cells that have stopped dividing. Reading across them as one thing is the mistake the category invites.
The measurement problem is structural rather than anyone's fault. The outcome of interest takes decades to observe, so the research uses stand-ins: a marker in blood, a measure in cultured cells, a lifespan result in an animal that lives for three weeks.
That does not make the work uninteresting. It does mean that a claim in this category is usually a claim about a marker, and reading it as a claim about ageing is the mistake the whole field invites you to make.
Ipamorelin
Early human trialsA selective growth hormone secretagogue that prompts a short pulse of GH release. Widely used, and supported almost entirely by early pharmacology rather than outcome trials.
Muscle & performance · Anti-aging & longevity
CJC-1295
Early human trialsA GHRH analogue that raises growth hormone by amplifying the body's own release signal. Sold in two forms whose durations differ by two orders of magnitude.
Muscle & performance · Anti-aging & longevity
Tesamorelin
Approved for another indicationA GHRH analogue approved by the FDA for reducing excess visceral fat in HIV-associated lipodystrophy. The only compound in this category with completed phase 3 trials.
Muscle & performance · Weight loss · Anti-aging & longevity
MK-677
Early human trialsAn orally active ghrelin receptor agonist that raises growth hormone and IGF-1. Not a peptide, and not injected. It is a small molecule taken by mouth.
Muscle & performance · Anti-aging & longevity
GHRP-2
Approved for another indicationA growth hormone releasing peptide approved in Japan as a diagnostic agent. It triggers a pulse of your own growth hormone rather than supplying any.
Muscle & performance · Anti-aging & longevity
GHRP-6
Early human trialsThe oldest of the growth hormone releasing peptides, and the one with the strongest effect on hunger. That appetite stimulation is the defining fact about it.
Muscle & performance · Anti-aging & longevity
Hexarelin
Early human trialsThe most potent growth hormone releasing peptide of the three, and the only one that reliably stops working. Its response fades within about two weeks of continuous use.
Muscle & performance · Anti-aging & longevity
NAD+
Early human trialsA coenzyme present in every cell, given by injection or infusion in the hope of raising cellular levels. Not a peptide, and poorly absorbed by the routes people use.
Anti-aging & longevity
MOTS-c
PreclinicalA 16-amino-acid peptide encoded by mitochondrial rather than nuclear DNA, studied in animals for effects on metabolism and exercise capacity.
Anti-aging & longevity · Muscle & performance
Epitalon
PreclinicalA four-amino-acid peptide studied almost exclusively by one Russian research group, best known for claims about telomerase activation.
Anti-aging & longevity
Humanin
PreclinicalA 24-residue peptide the mitochondrion encodes itself, found in the neurons that survived an Alzheimer's brain. Twenty-five years of cell and rodent work behind it, and not one human trial.
Anti-aging & longevity
SS-31
Clinical trialsA mitochondria-targeting peptide that reached phase 3 and missed its primary endpoints. The most rigorously tested compound on this site, and a cautionary tale about mechanism.
Anti-aging & longevity
Thymalin
Early human trialsA thymus extract used as a medicine in Russia for decades. Not a single defined peptide, which is the fact that governs everything else on this page.
Anti-aging & longevity
Thymulin
PreclinicalA genuine thymic hormone with real immunology behind it, and no clinical development. It only works with zinc bound to it, which is the most useful fact about it.
Anti-aging & longevity · Healing & recovery
Cardiogen
PreclinicalAssigned to cardiac tissue by the St Petersburg programme that invented this category. Four decades of Russian work sit behind it, and none of it has been reproduced anywhere else.
Anti-aging & longevity
Cartalax
PreclinicalThe cartilage tripeptide, and the clearest illustration of what is strange about this family. A single terminal amino acid separates it from the one assigned to the liver.
Anti-aging & longevity
Cortagen
PreclinicalThe cortex peptide, sold for nerve repair and cognition. It differs from Cartalax by a single terminal residue and is assigned to an entirely different tissue.
Anti-aging & longevity
Livagen
PreclinicalThe liver peptide of the Khavinson family. There is real research behind it — all of it from one institute — none of it independently reproduced.
Anti-aging & longevity
Ovagen
PreclinicalAssigned to the liver and gut lining, and separated from the cartilage peptide by one terminal residue. Russian sources only, and never replicated outside them.
Anti-aging & longevity
Pinealon
PreclinicalThe brain peptide, and the one most often bought outside Russia, because cognitive claims travel further than prostate ones. The evidence has not travelled at all.
Anti-aging & longevity
Prostamax
PreclinicalSold for the prostate in the Russian literature and nowhere else. The symptoms it targets are also the symptoms of something that needs assessing properly.
Anti-aging & longevity
Testagen
PreclinicalAssigned to testicular tissue, and routinely mistaken for a hormone. It is not one, it is not claimed to be one, and that is the most useful thing to know about it.
Anti-aging & longevity
Vesugen
PreclinicalThe vascular peptide of the family, described in the originating work as supporting the endothelium. One institute, four decades, no outside replication.
Anti-aging & longevity
Bronchogen
PreclinicalThe bronchial peptide, four amino acids, sold on airway repair. It is Cartalax with a leucine on the end, and the two are assigned to cartilage and to bronchi respectively.
Anti-aging & longevity
Chonluten
PreclinicalThe lung peptide, three amino acids long, bought mostly by people with a respiratory complaint that has not resolved. It differs from Cartalax and Ovagen by a single terminal residue.
Anti-aging & longevity
Pancragen
PreclinicalThe pancreas peptide, sold on blood sugar and pancreatic function. Of everything in this family it is the one whose target market makes the absence of evidence most dangerous.
Anti-aging & longevity
Thymogen
PreclinicalA two–amino-acid thymic peptide that reached the Russian pharmacopoeia as a registered immunomodulator. That makes its regulatory story unusual in this family, even though the evidence sits in the same place.
Anti-aging & longevity
Vilon
PreclinicalThe shortest peptide in the family at two amino acids, assigned to the thymus and sold for immune ageing. Its brevity is the whole argument against it and, in the originating literature, for it.
Anti-aging & longevity
PNC-27
PreclinicalA peptide designed to punch holes in cancer cell membranes. Sold to people who are frightened — on cell-culture evidence — with no human trial of any kind.
Anti-aging & longevity
FOXO4-DRI
PreclinicalA senolytic peptide that made aged mice regrow fur and recover kidney function. One landmark paper, no human trial, and it works by making cells kill themselves.
Anti-aging & longevity
DSIP
Early human trialsNamed for an effect it has never convincingly demonstrated. Fifty years of research have not established that it induces sleep in humans.
Anti-aging & longevity
HGH (Somatropin)
ApprovedAn approved medicine for people with a growth hormone deficiency. Used without that diagnosis it is a controlled substance in the United States, and the anti-ageing claims it is sold on were retracted by their own author.
Muscle & performance · Anti-aging & longevity
Oxytocin
ApprovedApproved as an injection to induce labour. The nasal spray sold for bonding and social anxiety rests on trials that have largely failed to replicate.
Anti-aging & longevity
Glutathione
Early human trialsThe body's main antioxidant, and a poor drug. The FDA has warned specifically against the injectable skin-lightening use. That is what most of it is sold for.
Anti-aging & longevity · Skin & hair
CJC-1295 / Ipamorelin
PreclinicalThe default growth hormone blend: a GHRH analogue with a ghrelin agonist, usually 5 mg of each. Two mechanisms that genuinely differ, unlike the triple.
Muscle & performance · Anti-aging & longevity
Tesamorelin / CJC-1295 / Ipamorelin
PreclinicalThree growth hormone secretagogues in one vial, commonly 6:3:3. Two of the three do the same job, which is the thing worth knowing before buying it.
Muscle & performance · Anti-aging & longevity
Thymosin alpha-1
Approved for another indicationAn immune-modulating peptide approved in more than thirty countries for hepatitis B, and studied in sepsis and as a vaccine adjuvant. Not approved in the United States.
Healing & recovery · Anti-aging & longevity
Sermorelin
Approved for another indicationThe original GHRH analogue, and the only one here that once held FDA approval, withdrawn for commercial reasons and not for safety.
Muscle & performance · Anti-aging & longevity
The separate lines of work
NAD+ and its precursors address a coenzyme at the centre of cellular energy metabolism, whose levels fall with age. Raising it is achievable and measurable. What follows from raising it is where the evidence thins. 5-amino-1MQ comes at the same system from the opposite end, inhibiting an enzyme that consumes a precursor instead of supplying more of one.
MOTS-c and SS-31 are mitochondrial. One is a peptide encoded in mitochondrial DNA, not the nucleus, which was a surprise when it was described. The other targets the inner membrane and has been through more formal clinical development than almost anything else on this site.
Epitalon and the Khavinson bioregulators are a separate tradition with a separate literature, much of it from one research institute in St Petersburg and much of it hard to access or independently replicate. Worth knowing before you read a summary of the results, because a summary will not tell you that.
Then there is the senolytic corner, where FOXO4-DRI is the one people ask about. The preclinical concept is well defined. The human evidence is not thin — it is absent.
Three questions that cut through most of it
What was measured: a marker, a function, or an outcome? In what: cells, an animal, or people? And compared against what?
A compound that raises NAD+ in blood has demonstrated that it raises NAD+ in blood. A compound that extends life in a nematode has demonstrated that. Both are real findings. Neither is a claim about human ageing, and the citation list on each profile is there so you can check which one you are looking at.
Read next
Head to headIpamorelin vs GHRP-2Two ghrelin-receptor secretagogues doing the same job. Selectivity is what separates them: one raises growth hormone and little else, the other raises several things at once.Head to headCJC-1295 vs sermorelin: half-life and scheduleCJC-1295 and sermorelin are GHRH analogues acting on the same receptor, and how long each survives in the body is the whole of the difference. It sets both the schedule and the shape of what comes out.Head to headTesamorelin vs HGHAsk the body to release its own growth hormone, or supply it from outside. The choice decides how much say the body's own feedback still has.Head to headMK-677 vs HGHAn oral secretagogue against injected growth hormone. Cheaper, needle-free and indirect on one side. The hormone itself, dosed in IU, on the other.StackCJC-1295, ipamorelin and MK-677The two-receptor growth hormone pairing with an oral secretagogue stacked on top. Three compounds, two of them acting on the same receptor.StackNAD+ with EpitalonThe commonly run longevity pairing, and the one where the two compounds' problems are different. NAD+ has a delivery problem; Epitalon has a replication problem.GuideCycling on and off: what the breaks are actually forTwo different arguments both get called cycling, and only one of them is about receptors. Pulling them apart tells you which compounds it actually applies to.GuideTravelling with peptidesTemperature, paperwork, and the fact that legal status changes when you cross a line on a map. Two of those have practical answers.GuideReading a dose protocol without misreading itWhere the numbers on a compound page come from, what a range is telling you, and the unit slips that turn a protocol into a tenfold error.
Common questions
- Does raising NAD+ slow ageing?
- Levels can be raised, and the decline with age is well documented. Whether raising it changes anything that matters in people is unsettled. Most of the research reports the marker rather than a downstream effect, and our profile keeps the two apart.
- Why is the bioregulator evidence hard to assess?
- Much of it comes from a single research tradition, appears in venues that are difficult to reach, and has limited independent replication. That is a statement about the evidence base — not a verdict on the compounds — and it is why those profiles are among the shortest we publish.
- What is a surrogate endpoint, and why does it matter here?
- A surrogate is something measurable standing in for the thing you care about — a blood marker instead of years of healthy life. Longevity research leans on them out of necessity. A surrogate moving is not the outcome moving, and the gap between the two is where most of the marketing lives.
Last updated 21 Aug 2026
Next
Costing anti-aging & longevity
- Price per milligramWhat the compounds on this page cost across every vendor we read, in a unit that survives different vial sizes.
- Which way prices are movingA quiet rise across a whole category is invisible in one day's number and obvious over a few weeks.
- Who sells themThe sellers we track, what each stocks, and when we last read their catalogue.