Epitalon/Epifamin

[Guest guest]

I have taken a quick look at the abstracts relating to the " Epitalon " and

" Epifamin " (or " Epiphamin " ) drugs that are promoted by Dr. Evsyukova as a

potential treatment of Samter's.

I must say that it is difficult to give any substantiated opinion, because

almost all articles relating to tests of these drugs are written in russian, and

their abstracts are either too short or too vague.

What I understand, though, is that a group of russian researchers on the subject

of aging and immunity have evidenced that extracts of the pineal glands of

animals have lab effects on cancer, immunity, aging, etc and that they have

tried to see what to make of it.

A product called Epiphamin is marketed accordingly, and resold through channels

such as this one :

http://www.tiopoietine.info/Epiphamin_eng.htm

which claims clinical successes. However, these clinical successes have not been

published in journals referenced by PubMed, which makes it difficult to assess

their credibility.

According to the previous site, Epiphamin is manufactured from cattle and pig

pineal gland, which makes it in my opinion a potentially hazardous medical

product because of its animal brain origin.

Epitalon is a synthetic peptide (Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly) which is believed by the same

researchers to be the active principle in Epiphamin, and therefore safer because

of its synthetic origin.

They have published a number of articles suggesting it may contribute to the

normal function of the pineal gland, may have an impact on Melatonin, immunity,

etc.

The only independent study published on PubMed (but nevertheless including a

couple of the original researchers) did not find any impact on Melatonin,

however :

J Endocrinol Invest. 2003 Mar;26(3):211-5.

Effect of a synthetic pineal tetrapeptide (Ala-Glu-Asp-GLy) on melatonin

secretion by the pineal gland of young and old rats.

Djeridane Y, Khavinson VKh, Anisimov VN, Touitou Y.

Faculty of Medicine Pitié-Salpêtrière, Medical Biochemistry and Molecular

Biology, Paris, France.

Abstract

The pineal gland contains many peptides known to be implicated in melatonin

production. We examined the effects of a synthetic pineal tetrapeptide

Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly on melatonin secretion by the pineal gland. The tetrapeptide

effects on pineal gland melatonin secretion were studied in young (9 weeks) and

old (27 months) male Wistar rats using a perifusion device. Pineal tetrapeptide

at the concentrations used (10(-4) to 10(-6) M) had no significant effect upon

melatonin secretion whatever the age of the animals, young or old. We also

looked at the effect of the tetrapeptide on pineal melatonin stimulated by a

beta-adrenergic agonist, isoproterenol. We found that isoproterenol-induced

melatonin increase was not modified by the tetrapeptide. Our results suggest

that the pineal tetrapeptide Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly, does not seem to play a role, at

least in vitro, in the control of melatonin secretion by the rat pineal gland.

So, apart from speculation, there is not much else that can be said about these

drugs until more independent trials are conducted.

On the principle, it may well be that these drugs have an impact on the

functioning of the pineal gland, which may in turn have an impact on the

synthesis of its principal product, Melatonin, which in turn has an impact on

immunity.

However, the fact that one of them is of animal origin and that neither has been

tested for toxicological safety or side-effects, at least in a PubMed-indexed

journal, is definitely not in favor of trying them blindly.