One compound, thymalin, is extracted from calf thymus tissue and given as a short course of injections. A group led by Vladimir Khavinson tracked what happened to elderly patients given it, alongside a companion pineal extract, over several years.
Across a peer-reviewed study of 266 elderly and older adults followed for six to eight years, those given thymalin had a mortality rate roughly half that of an untreated comparison group, and those given thymalin together with the pineal extract epithalamin saw an even larger drop, depending on how the groups were combined.
The study came from a single research group in Russia and Ukraine and has not been repeated by an independent lab elsewhere, the kind of replication a finding this size would need before it could be taken as settled. Thymalin remains used clinically in Russia but is not approved in the United States or most of Europe.
Read the original study
Khavinson and Morozov, Neuroendocrinology Letters, 2003 · PubMed 14523363
One lab's striking number, still waiting on a second.
Source
- Khavinson, V. K., & Morozov, V. G. (2003). Peptides of pineal gland and thymus prolong human life. Neuroendocrinology Letters, 24(3-4), 233–40. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14523363/