Compounds studied in the context of aging biology, covering areas such as telomere maintenance, cellular senescence and age-related decline. Most of the evidence in this category is preclinical or early-stage rather than drawn from large human trials, and none of these compounds is an approved anti-aging treatment. Each profile summarizes what the current research does and does not show.
Anti-aging research targets the fundamental mechanisms of biological aging — telomere attrition, mitochondrial decline, cellular senescence and epigenetic drift. It is also the category where evidence should be read most cautiously.
The compounds collected here are studied against specific hallmarks of aging — telomere attrition, mitochondrial decline, cellular senescence and epigenetic drift — rather than against a single pathway. Epithalon, a synthetic tetrapeptide investigated by Russian gerontology researchers, is the most prominent example, with published work examining telomerase activity in cell culture. Other compounds in and adjacent to this category target NAD+ availability, sirtuin signalling and autophagy — which is why it overlaps closely with the Coenzymes sub-category.
The framing that helps most here is that aging is not one process. A compound may plausibly influence one hallmark while doing nothing for the others, so "anti-aging" is better read as a collection of separate, specific research questions.
Honesty about evidence stage matters more in this category than anywhere else on the site. Much of the supporting research is preclinical or comes from small studies, and aging is a slow, multi-factor process that is genuinely hard to measure: a true effect on human lifespan or healthspan takes decades and large cohorts to demonstrate. Cell-culture telomerase findings and short-term animal data are scientifically interesting, but they do not establish a longevity benefit in people. Striking laboratory results are worth understanding — and worth keeping firmly in proportion.
Epithalon is the signature anti-aging peptide and the focus of the telomere research; NAD+ and Glutathione connect this area to redox and energy metabolism. Our Epithalon telomere article and anti-aging evidence review go deeper into what the studies actually show.
Immunomodulatory peptide derived from thymosin fraction 5, studied for regulation of T-cell function in immune research.
Synthetic tetrapeptide modeled on a pineal gland peptide, developed in Russia and studied in telomerase and aging research.
