Cardiogen
Cardiogen-NAla-Glu-Asp-ArgEvidence
Preclinical
Typical vial
10 mg
Route
2 routes
Status
United States
What it is
Assigned 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.
Cardiogen is one of the short peptide bioregulators developed at the St Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology, each of which is assigned to a specific tissue. It is the one assigned to cardiac tissue, and the originating work describes it as supporting heart muscle function with age.
Who buys it explains why this page is blunt. Cardiogen sells to people in their fifties and sixties who have had a result from a cardiologist they did not like, and who are looking for something to do about it between appointments. That is the population in which an unstudied compound does the most damage, not because of what it contains but because of what it displaces.
Everything else about Cardiogen is inherited. It rests on one institute's work, spanning decades and never replicated by anyone outside it, and on a proposed mechanism no other compound on this site shares: a peptide two to four amino acids long, said to reach the nucleus and switch on the genes of one tissue. For a compound aimed at the heart, that is a long way from the standard of evidence the rest of cardiology runs on. That argument and the structural objection to it are set out under Khavinson bioregulator in the glossary, once, because they apply identically to all of them.
How it works
Cardiogen is proposed to enter the cell nucleus and bind DNA directly, promoting expression of genes associated with heart and cardiovascular tissue. What that would mean in practice is expression of genes governing cardiomyocyte function, in a tissue that does not regenerate and cannot be sampled to check.
No independent group has demonstrated any of that. Because the mechanism is described as genomic rather than receptor-mediated, none of the pharmacokinetic reasoning used elsewhere on this site applies: there is no receptor occupancy to model, and no dose-response curve established outside the originating work.
What it is studied for
Each entry states the evidence behind it. We do not rank indications by effectiveness — for most compounds here, that would be a claim nobody can support.
Support for heart and cardiovascular tissue
Published reviewThe claim Cardiogen is sold on, and the only one the originating literature makes for it.
EvidenceReported in Russian clinical and animal work from a single institute. Not registered — not blinded to contemporary standards — and never independently replicated.
Regulatory status
Last reviewed 18 Aug 2026. Positions in this category change frequently, so we date the line.
Not approved for human use in the United States, the European Union or the United Kingdom. Some peptides in this family are registered in Russia as supplements or medicines. Cardiogen is sold elsewhere as a research chemical.
Identity and clearance
What the molecule is, and how long a dose stays measurable.
Molecule
- Class
- Short synthetic peptide bioregulator
- Length
- 4 amino acids
Sequence
Ala-Glu-Asp-Arg
Most of this family shares a glutamic acid and aspartic acid core, differing only in one or two flanking residues.
Dose protocols reported in sources
Displayed for reference only. Every row says where it came from, and a trial protocol and a community convention are not the same kind of information. None of this is fed into the calculator, and none of it is a recommendation.
| Goal | Dose | Frequency | Route | Units, 10 mg vial | Source | Start this protocol |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Course described in community sources | 1 mg – 2 mg | Daily for a 10-day course, repeated a few times a year | SubcutaneousThe 10-day course is the pattern described across this whole family. It is convention, not a finding. No dose-ranging study establishes it, and the same figures appear for peptides assigned to entirely different organs. | 10–20 u | Community practice | Start this |
The doses above in syringe units, for the vial you have:
Start this copies a row into a protocol of your own, which you can then edit. Where a source gave a dose range or an ambiguous frequency, those fields arrive empty — we will not pick a number on your behalf.
CheckRows marked community practice describe what people commonly do, drawn from public discussion. They are not derived from any trial and are not evidence that a dose is safe or effective.
Cycling
Community practice10 days on, Months between courses off.
Described consistently across the family, and consistently without a study behind it.
Work out what to draw
Pre-filled with a 20 mg vial as a worked example. These are not recommended values — change them to match the vial in front of you.
Draw to 20 units on a 1 mL U-100 syringe. That is 0.2 mL, containing 2 mg of Cardiogen.
20 units sits exactly on a printed line.
BioAlmanac performs arithmetic on values you enter. It does not recommend doses, schedules or compounds, and nothing here is medical advice. Confirm every calculation against your vial and syringe before drawing, and speak with a licensed healthcare provider.
Open this calculation in the full calculator
Units, concentration, bacteriostatic water — the glossary defines the vocabulary, and a unit is not a fixed volume.
Safety
Reported effects, the situations that need care, and the ones that mean stop.
Reported effects
- Generally described as well toleratedPublished review
Reported in the Russian literature
That literature is not designed to detect adverse events reliably, so an absence of reports is weak evidence of safety rather than good evidence of it.
- Injection site irritationCommunity practice
Occasionally reported
- Everything elseCommunity practice
Unknown
No adverse event has been systematically recorded outside the originating programme.
When to stop
- Any allergic response: rash, hives, facial swelling or difficulty breathing. Seek urgent care.
- An injection site that becomes hot, spreading or produces pus.
- Any new or unexplained symptom you would ordinarily see a doctor about.
Interactions and situations that need care
- Active or previous cancerAvoid
The proposed mechanism is switching on gene expression in a target tissue. Whatever one makes of that claim, deliberately pursuing it in someone with malignancy has no supporting evidence and an obvious direction of concern.
- Pregnancy and breastfeedingAvoid
No reproductive or developmental safety data, for a compound whose claimed mechanism is gene expression.
- Existing cardiovascular diseaseUse caution
A compound sold for the heart is most attractive to people who have something wrong with theirs, and that is exactly the population in which an unstudied compound should not be substituting for cardiology.
- Expecting the Russian literature to mean what a trial meansUse caution
It is real research, produced over decades, and it is not evaluable the way a registered randomised trial is. Four decades without independent replication is information in its own right, and it points one way.
What to expect
What the sources describe over time, and how confident anyone can be about it.
HonestlyThere is no human efficacy data for this compound, so there is no evidence-based timeline to give. Any site publishing a week-by-week schedule of expected effects has invented it.
- No independent group has replicated the central findings of this family in forty years.
- The proposed mechanism, short peptides acting directly on chromatin, is not how anything else on this site is understood to work.
- Peptides in this family differing by one amino acid are assigned to different organs. If that seems like a lot of specificity for one residue, that is the right reaction.
- The 10-day course pattern is identical across compounds assigned to entirely different tissues, which is a convention, not a dosing finding.
- Nothing here establishes an effect in people, and the absence of reported harm is not the same as evidence of safety.
Storage and combinations
How to keep it, and what it does and does not go with.
Storage and handling
- Freeze-dried powder
- Refrigerated at 2–8 °C, protected from light.
- After mixing
- Refrigerated at 2–8 °C. Do not freeze once mixed.
- Long-term, frozen
- Unopened powder is stable at −20 °C or colder.
Checking your vial
Research chemicals carry no manufacturing standard, so what the vial looks like is often the only quality signal available before you use it.
White cake, clear solution
Standard for a very short peptide.
Collapsed cake or cloudy solution
Heat damage or degradation. Do not use it.
Vocabulary on this page
- Khavinson bioregulator
- A family of very short peptides from one St Petersburg institute, each assigned to a different organ. The claim is that they act directly on DNA rather than through a receptor.
- Batch number
- An identifier for one production run, printed on the vial and on the certificate that tests it. Matching the two is what makes the certificate mean anything about the vial in your hand.
- Injection site
- Where on the body an injection is given. Rotating between sites is standard practice for anything given repeatedly.
- Peptide
- A short chain of amino acids: the same building blocks as a protein, in a chain short enough to behave differently.
- Protocol
- One compound, with a dose, a frequency and a length: the plan, as opposed to what was actually taken.
Questions
- Is there any Western research on this?
- Very little, and none that reproduces the central claims. The body of work is almost entirely from one Russian institute, and it has stood unreplicated elsewhere for decades.
- Can this replace a cardiology follow-up?
- No, and the question is worth asking out loud because the timing of these purchases suggests it gets asked silently. Cardiac disease is monitored with measurements, it progresses without symptoms, and the treatments that change outcomes are established. Nothing here is a substitute for any of that.
- Does the oral form work?
- Both oral and injected forms are sold with the same claims. For most peptides the route changes everything, because digestion destroys them. That the same effect is claimed either way is a reason for scepticism rather than reassurance.
References
Everything on this page that came from a source, with the source.
Short peptide bioregulators: the Khavinson programme and its evidential limits
Russian gerontology and bioregulation literature, 2014 · Body of largely unregistered clinical and animal work from a single institute
Humans and animals
Reports tissue-specific effects across a family of di-, tri- and tetrapeptides, attributed to direct interaction with chromatin. Trial registration, pre-specified protocols, blinding to contemporary standards and independent replication are largely absent, and no group outside the originating institute has reproduced the central findings.
Commonly reported community protocols
BioAlmanac editorial summary of public community sources, 2026 · Not a study
Records the 10-day course pattern described across this family in public discussion. Carries no evidential weight about safety or effect.
Cardiogen compared with
Also compared with GHK-Cu, Ipamorelin, CJC-1295, Tesamorelin, MK-677, GHRP-2.
Related compounds
GHK-Cu
A naturally occurring copper-binding tripeptide with a long history in topical skincare research. Injected use is not what the research studied.
Ipamorelin
A 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.
CJC-1295
A 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.
Tesamorelin
A 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.
Next
What to do with Cardiogen
- Keep a record of itTurn a dose and a schedule into a protocol, then log what you actually take. Cardiogen is filled in for you.
- See what it costsPer-milligram prices read from vendor sites and confirmed by a person, so vial sizes compare.
- Check a combinationWhat our profiles record about Cardiogen alongside each other compound — including the pairs where nothing is recorded.
Keep this page honest
If something here is wrong, out of date, or missing a source, tell us and we will fix it and say that we did.
This page is educational. It describes what published research reports, not what you should do. Peptides discussed here are largely not approved for human use, and nothing on BioAlmanac is medical advice. No clinician reviews these pages.
Page last updated 18 Aug 2026