What is the amino acid sequence of Cardiogen?

The most reliable sources describe Cardiogen as the tetrapeptide alanyl-glutamyl-aspartyl-arginine, sequence Ala-Glu-Asp-Arg (AEDR), molecular formula C18H31N7O9, molecular weight about 489.5 Da. This is the active substance claimed in a 2010 US patent from the Khavinson group. No credible source describes it as a tripeptide or dipeptide.

Is Cardiogen the same as Epitalon?

No. They are sibling peptides from the same Russian bioregulator tradition but target different organs. Cardiogen (Ala-Glu-Asp-Arg) is pitched at the heart; Epitalon (Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly) is the pineal-gland 'longevity' peptide. Their sequences differ only in the final amino acid. Epitalon has its own larger, though still mostly Russian and unreplicated, literature.

How does Cardiogen supposedly work?

The proposed mechanism is gene-level regulation: the hypothesis that a very short peptide enters cells, reaches the nucleus, and influences gene expression in cardiac tissue. This is the general hypothesis of the Khavinson bioregulator group and is not an independently confirmed mechanism for Cardiogen, especially not in humans.

Is Cardiogen FDA-approved?

No. Cardiogen is not approved by the FDA or any other Western regulator for any condition, and it is not a lawful dietary ingredient in the United States. There is no completed registration trial and no Western regulatory file. In the West it circulates as an unapproved research chemical.

Are there any human studies on Cardiogen?

No English-language human clinical trials, human safety studies, or human pharmacokinetic data could be located. The only on-topic published studies are a small number of preclinical rat and cell-culture papers, mostly Russian-language and from the originating research tradition.

Does Cardiogen have a Wikipedia page or PubChem entry?

No. There is no English Wikipedia article specifically for Cardiogen, and a PubChem name search does not return a clean compound record for it (a name lookup returns an unrelated molecule). No CAS number was located either. For a compound sold for heart health, that absence of basic reference-database identity is notable.

What dose of Cardiogen do people use?

There is no validated dose and no human dose-finding study. Reported vendor and community use centers on oral capsule courses of about 28 to 30 days, one to two capsules once or twice daily, repeated two to three times per year. Research-chemical vials are labeled in very different (milligram) units, which conflict sharply with the capsule figures.

Its true safety is unknown because it has essentially never been tested in humans. Vendor pages call it well tolerated, but that is not backed by human safety data. One of the few real studies reported a tumor-modifying effect in a rat sarcoma model, which is a reason for caution. No one can responsibly call an untested peptide safe.

What is a peptide bioregulator?

A 'peptide bioregulator' is the term from Vladimir Khavinson's St. Petersburg research tradition for short synthetic peptides proposed to act as tissue-specific regulatory signals rather than conventional drugs. The concept began with organ extracts and moved to synthesized di-, tri-, and tetrapeptides. The framework is largely supported by the originating group rather than independent replication.

A single small clear glass vial of fine white lyophilized peptide powder standing on a clean white laboratory bench with softly blurred clinical glassware behind it.

Cardiogen: The Russian Heart Bioregulator and the Thin Evidence Behind It

Q: Does Cardiogen actually work?

There is no human evidence that Cardiogen works. The published record is a few small rat and cell-culture studies from one research tradition, with no Western replication and no human clinical trials. A patent and a handful of preclinical papers are not proof of benefit in people, so its effectiveness is unproven.

Aurélie Rondon, Ph.D.Reviewed by Prof. Joanna Trylska, Ph.D.

Updated 2026-06-16T00:00:00.000Z17 min read · 4,504 words

Investigational

Important: Cardiogen (also sold as Cardiocytogen) is an unapproved drug. It is not approved by the FDA or any other Western regulator for the prevention or treatment of any condition, it is not a dietary ingredient in the United States, and it is sold only "for research use only, not for human consumption." Its evidence base is extremely thin: a small number of mostly Russian-language studies in rats and cell cultures from a single research tradition, with no Western peer-reviewed human data and no completed human trials. Every dose figure here describes what is reported in research and vendor literature, not a prescription, recommendation, or guidance to self-administer. This article is educational, summarizes the published record, and is not medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional.

Cardiogen is a synthetic four-amino-acid peptide from Russia's "peptide bioregulator" tradition, marketed for heart and cardiac-tissue support. It belongs to the same family of short peptides developed by Vladimir Khavinson and the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology that gave the biohacking world Epitalon, one of the compounds people shortlist among the best peptides for longevity. The honest headline is the one in the title: the evidence behind Cardiogen is thin. What exists is a handful of small, mostly Russian-language studies in rats and cell cultures from a single research group, with no Western peer-reviewed human data, no completed human trials, and no entry in the reference databases most peptides have.

This page is the plain-English map of the whole compound, written to be honest rather than promotional. We cover what Cardiogen actually is, the bioregulator idea it comes from, the proposed mechanism, what the small published record genuinely shows (and the much larger amount it does not), the doses people report, the safety picture, and its research-only status. Because this is a niche, low-evidence compound, the goal here is clarity and honesty, not hype.

Key Takeaways

The defining fact is the missing evidence. Cardiogen has no English-language human clinical trials, no Western replication, no Wikipedia entry, and no clean PubChem compound record; the on-topic published studies are a few small rat and cell-culture papers from one research tradition (PubMed search, "cardiogen peptide", retrieved 2026-06-16).

Cardiogen is a synthetic tetrapeptide with the sequence Ala-Glu-Asp-Arg (AEDR), molecular formula C18H31N7O9 and molecular weight about 489.5 Da, described as a substance that "restores myocardium function" in a 2010 US patent from the Khavinson group (US Patent 7,662,789, "Peptide substance restoring myocardium function," 2010, retrieved 2026-06-16).

It comes from the Russian "bioregulator" tradition founded by Vladimir Khavinson at the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology, whose group synthesized short di-, tri-, and tetrapeptides proposed to act as tissue-specific signals (Wikipedia, "Vladimir Khavinson", retrieved 2026-06-16).

The proposed mechanism is gene-level regulation, the group's general hypothesis that very short peptides enter cells, reach the nucleus, and influence gene expression. This is a hypothesis from the originating group, not an independently confirmed mechanism for Cardiogen (Khavinson et al., "Peptide Regulation of Gene Expression," Molecules, 2021, retrieved 2026-06-16).

It is not FDA-approved and is not a dietary ingredient in the US. In Russia a related capsule is sold as a non-prescription supplement; in the West Cardiogen circulates as an unapproved research chemical (PeptideInsight, "Cardiogen," 2025, retrieved 2026-06-16).

Reported dosing is a vendor/community convention, not validated. Oral capsule courses are commonly described as roughly 28 to 30 days, repeated two to three times per year, with no human dose-finding data behind them (PeptideInsight, "Cardiogen," 2025, retrieved 2026-06-16).

What is Cardiogen?

Cardiogen is a synthetic four-amino-acid peptide (a tetrapeptide) from the Russian "peptide bioregulator" tradition, marketed as a signal to support heart and cardiac-tissue health. It is also sold under the name Cardiocytogen, and vendors use both names, plus "AEDR peptide," for what appears to be the same molecule. It is studied and sold for cardiac support, but almost none of that is backed by the kind of evidence most people assume the word "studied" implies.

Chemically, the most reliable sources describe Cardiogen as the tetrapeptide alanyl-glutamyl-aspartyl-arginine, sequence Ala-Glu-Asp-Arg (AEDR), with molecular formula C18H31N7O9 and a molecular weight of about 489.5 Da. That sequence is the active substance claimed in a US patent from the Khavinson group titled "Peptide substance restoring myocardium function" (US Patent 7,662,789, 2010, retrieved 2026-06-16). It is worth being precise here because vendor pages are inconsistent: a couple of sites list a different molecular weight (around 460 Da), which does not match the formula, so we treat 489.5 Da as the correct figure and flag the 460 figure as a likely error. We found no credible source describing Cardiogen as a tripeptide or dipeptide; every primary and secondary source points to the AEDR tetrapeptide. If injectable or short peptides are new to you, start with our how peptides work guide.

The single most important fact about Cardiogen is what is not there. Unlike better-known peptides, there is no English Wikipedia article for it, and a search of PubChem does not return a clean compound record under the name "Cardiogen" (a name lookup returns an unrelated molecule, L-carnitine, which is a false match) (PubChem, name search "cardiogen", retrieved 2026-06-16). For a compound being sold for heart health, that absence of basic reference-database identity is a meaningful signal in itself.

Citation capsule. Cardiogen (also Cardiocytogen, "AEDR peptide") is a synthetic tetrapeptide with the sequence Ala-Glu-Asp-Arg (AEDR), molecular formula C18H31N7O9, molecular weight approximately 489.5 Da, claimed as a myocardium-restoring substance in US Patent 7,662,789 (Khavinson group, granted 2010). No English Wikipedia entry, no clean PubChem compound record, and no CAS number were located. Source: US Patent 7,662,789, 2010; PubMed and PubChem searches, 2026.

A single small clear glass vial of fine white lyophilized peptide powder standing on a clean white laboratory bench with softly blurred clinical glassware behind it.

Cardiogen and Epitalon are siblings from the same Russian "bioregulator" family, but they target different organs: Cardiogen is pitched at the heart, while Epitalon is the pineal-gland "longevity" peptide. Both trace to Vladimir Khavinson and the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology, and both share the same core idea: that very short, organ-specific peptides can act as regulatory signals. They also share the same core weakness, which is a heavy reliance on one research tradition and a shortage of independent human data.

The bioregulator concept began with extracts from animal organs (the "cytomax" line) that were later distilled into short synthesized peptides (the "cytogen" line). Khavinson's group reports having produced more than 20 organ-derived peptide complexes and around 15 synthesized di-, tri-, and tetrapeptides over several decades (Wikipedia, "Vladimir Khavinson", retrieved 2026-06-16). Within that system, each peptide is assigned to a tissue: Epitalon (Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly) to the pineal gland, and Cardiogen (Ala-Glu-Asp-Arg) to the heart. Notice how similar the two sequences are, differing only in the final amino acid, which is exactly the kind of detail that makes the strong organ-specific claims hard to take at face value without independent confirmation.

We deliberately keep the Epitalon discussion brief here to avoid overlapping its own dedicated guide. Epitalon has a larger (though still mostly Russian and unreplicated) literature and its own telomerase and longevity story; if that is what you are after, read the full Epitalon guide rather than treating Cardiogen as a heart-flavored version of it. The honest framing for this page is that Cardiogen has even less published evidence than Epitalon, despite being marketed with similar confidence.

Cardiogen and Epitalon are organ-assigned siblings in one research tradition. The organ-specific claims are proposed, not independently confirmed.

How is Cardiogen proposed to work?

Cardiogen is proposed to work by gene-level regulation: the idea that a very short peptide can enter heart cells, reach the cell nucleus, and nudge the genes involved in cardiac-tissue maintenance and repair. This is the general hypothesis behind all of the Khavinson bioregulators, and it is important to read it as a hypothesis from the originating group rather than an established mechanism for Cardiogen specifically.

The clearest published version of the idea comes from a 2021 review by Khavinson and colleagues, which argues that short peptides of two to seven amino acids can penetrate into cells and the nucleus and "regulate gene expression," including through interactions with DNA and histone proteins (Khavinson et al., "Peptide Regulation of Gene Expression: A Systematic Review," Molecules, 2021, retrieved 2026-06-16). For Cardiogen specifically, the cardiac-tissue claims trace to the group's own cell-culture and rat work, where the peptide was reported to affect heart-tissue cultures and to influence cardiac outcomes in injury models. None of this has been shown in humans, and the central review supporting the mechanism is authored by the same group that developed the peptides, which is a notable limitation rather than independent confirmation.

In plain terms, the proposed story is: a tiny peptide acts less like a drug that blocks a single receptor and more like a regulatory message that tells heart cells to maintain or repair themselves. It is a genuinely interesting hypothesis. The problem is the gap between an interesting hypothesis and demonstrated human benefit, which for Cardiogen is very wide. We keep the cell-biology deep dive at overview level here and point to how peptides work for the foundations.

Our take: The "gene regulation" mechanism is the most heavily marketed thing about Cardiogen, and it is also the least independently verified. A proposed mechanism is not the same as a proven effect, and a mechanism described mainly by the people selling the concept deserves extra skepticism, not less.

A conceptual photorealistic image of a translucent human heart in deep blue with faint glowing warm amber points of light around the cardiac muscle, suggesting cellular signaling and tissue maintenance, on a dark clinical background.

What does the actual research on Cardiogen show?

The actual research on Cardiogen is a small handful of mostly Russian-language studies in rats and cell cultures from one research tradition, with no Western replication and no human trials at all. This is the heart of the "thin evidence" thesis, and it is the single most useful thing to understand before considering the compound.

A search of PubMed, the main index of biomedical literature, finds only about three on-topic studies for "cardiogen peptide," and all of them are preclinical. They include a rat-myocardium tissue-culture study in Advances in Gerontology (Chalisova et al., PMID 20210190, 2009, retrieved 2026-06-16), a report on a tumor-modifying effect of Cardiogen in senescent rats in Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine (Levdik and Knyazkin, PMID 20396706, 2009, retrieved 2026-06-16), and an older tissue-culture study of synthetic peptide bioregulators that included Cardiogen among the peptides tested (Zakutskii et al., PMID 17152728, 2006, retrieved 2026-06-16). These are small, published in low-impact journals affiliated with the originating tradition, and not independently reproduced. We could find no English-language human clinical trial, no human safety study, and no human pharmacokinetic data.

The table below is a deliberately honest inventory of where the evidence stands. The recurring theme is "absent," not "promising."

Evidence type	What exists for Cardiogen	Strength
Western peer-reviewed human trials	None located	Absent
Human safety / pharmacokinetic data	None located	Absent
Independent (non-originating-group) studies	None located	Absent
Rat / animal studies	A few, Russian-group	Very limited
Cell-culture studies	A few, Russian-group	Very limited
Reference-database identity (Wikipedia, PubChem, CAS)	None located	Absent
Patent describing the molecule	One US patent (2010)	Present (not efficacy proof)

Our take: A patent is not evidence that something works in people, it is a legal claim of invention. The most common mistake we see with Cardiogen is treating the existence of a patent and a few rat papers as if it were a body of clinical evidence. It is not. On the scale that matters for a heart compound, the human file is empty.

The defining feature of Cardiogen is absence: a few preclinical papers from one tradition, and zeros nearly everywhere else.

What doses of Cardiogen do people report using?

There is no validated dose for Cardiogen, and no human dose-finding study exists; reported use is a vendor and community convention built around roughly 28-to-30-day oral capsule courses, repeated a few times a year. Every number in this section is something we are reporting from vendor literature, not a recommendation, and it rests on no human data.

The most commonly described pattern, especially for the Russian capsule supplement form, is one to two capsules once or twice daily with food, run as a course of about a month, then repeated after a several-month gap (PeptideInsight, "Cardiogen," 2025, retrieved 2026-06-16). Confusingly, the research-chemical vials sold in the West are labeled in very different units (for example a "20 mg" lyophilized vial), and some peptide databases quote multi-milligram daily figures, which is orders of magnitude away from the microgram capsule figures. That inconsistency is itself a red flag: when a compound's "doses" span from a couple hundred micrograms to tens of milligrams depending on the seller, it tells you there is no real dosing science underneath. We label all of it as an unvalidated convention.

The table below summarizes the reported routes for orientation only. It is not a protocol.

Form	Reported amount	Reported course	Notes
Oral capsule (supplement form)	1-2 capsules, 1-2x/day	~28-30 days, repeated 2-3x/year	The most commonly described pattern; microgram-range
Reconstituted vial (research chemical)	Vendor-dependent (e.g. labeled "20 mg" vials)	Not standardized	Units conflict sharply with capsule figures
Cycle gap	n/a	Several months between courses	A convention, not an evidence-based interval

Our take: When the reported "dose" for the same named compound ranges from a couple hundred micrograms in a capsule to tens of milligrams in a vial, that is not a dosing range, it is the absence of one. We never present these figures as a validated dose, because there is no human study to validate them against.

ProtocolPlus tracking: Cardiogen is about 0.26% of all logged doses (600 of 233,668), one of the least-tracked compounds in the app.

What are the side effects of Cardiogen?

Because Cardiogen has essentially never been tested in humans, its real side-effect profile is unknown; vendor pages describe it as well tolerated, but "unknown" is the honest word, not "safe." There is no human safety study to draw a profile from.

The reassuring language on vendor and supplement pages ("generally well tolerated," "no serious adverse effects reported") is not backed by published human safety data, and should be read as marketing rather than evidence. The most concrete safety-relevant published finding is actually a caution flag rather than a reassurance: one of the few real studies reported a "tumor-modifying effect" of Cardiogen on a sarcoma model in aged rats (Levdik and Knyazkin, PMID 20396706, 2009, retrieved 2026-06-16). Whatever the direction of that effect, the fact that a peptide proposed to regulate gene expression interacts with tumor models is a reason for caution, not comfort, until proper studies exist.

A hub-level summary of what is and is not known:

Reported (anecdotal/vendor): generally described as well tolerated; no formally documented serious adverse effects, but also no formal human safety monitoring.
Quality-related risks: as an unregulated research chemical, contamination, mislabeled potency, and impurity are real, peptide-independent concerns.
Researcher-relevant flag: gene-regulatory peptides interacting with tumor models warrant caution until human safety is studied.
Unknown: essentially all of the human side-effect, interaction, and long-term safety picture, because the data do not exist.

This is a hub-level overview. For how to think about peptide source quality and contamination risk in general, see how to vet peptide quality.

Is Cardiogen legal and approved?

Cardiogen is not approved by the FDA or any other Western regulator, so there is no official safety or efficacy determination; in the US it is not a lawful dietary ingredient and circulates as an unapproved research chemical, while in Russia a related capsule is sold as a non-prescription supplement. Status, not study count, is the practical bottom line here.

There is no FDA approval, no completed registration trial, and no Western regulatory file for Cardiogen (PeptideInsight, "Cardiogen," 2025, retrieved 2026-06-16). In the United States, peptides like this are generally sold "for research use only, not for human consumption," which is a legal framing that keeps a product outside the food and drug rules that would otherwise apply. The Russian capsule supplement market, where Cardiogen-type bioregulators originated, operates under a different and much looser regime than US drug approval, so the existence of a sold product there is not evidence of Western legality or of efficacy. For the broader legal picture and how research-chemical status actually works, see are peptides legal.

Our take: The most common misunderstanding is assuming that because Cardiogen is sold openly, including as a capsule abroad, it must be vetted and effective. It is not FDA-approved, it has no human trials, and being purchasable is not the same as being proven or safe.

A photorealistic still life on a clinic desk: a small clear glass vial of clear liquid beside a glass of water and a couple of unbranded white capsules on a light wooden surface in warm natural morning light.

A realistic look at expectations

Given that Cardiogen has no human evidence, realistic expectations should be very modest and very skeptical: there is currently no basis to expect a specific cardiac benefit in people. Calibrating expectations down is the responsible default for a compound this under-studied.

Two honest caveats sit on top of the marketing. First, results from a handful of rat and cell-culture studies by one group do not reliably predict anything in humans, and there is no human outcome to point to. Second, heart health is exactly the kind of "your money or your life" area where unproven self-experimentation carries real risk, including the risk of substituting an unvetted peptide for proven cardiac care. If you have a heart condition, the relevant action is a qualified clinician, not a research-chemical vial. For how to read transformation and benefit claims critically in general, see how peptides work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Cardiogen (also sold as Cardiocytogen or 'AEDR peptide') is a synthetic four-amino-acid peptide from the Russian 'peptide bioregulator' tradition, marketed to support heart and cardiac-tissue health. Its sequence is Ala-Glu-Asp-Arg (AEDR). It is not approved by any Western regulator, and its evidence base is very thin.

The bottom line

Cardiogen is a clear example of a peptide whose marketing has completely outrun its evidence. It is a real synthetic tetrapeptide, Ala-Glu-Asp-Arg, with a documented patent and a coherent place in the Russian bioregulator family alongside Epitalon. That lineage is genuine, and the gene-regulation hypothesis behind it is at least interesting. But interesting is where it stops.

The honest assessment, the one in the title, is that the evidence behind Cardiogen is thin to the point of being almost absent: no human trials, no Western replication, no reference-database identity, and only a few small rat and cell papers from the group that created it. For a compound aimed at the heart, that is not a gap to gloss over, it is the whole story. If you take one thing from this hub, let it be the distance between "patented and sold" and "shown to be safe and effective in people," and the value of a qualified clinician for anything to do with your heart. From here, the natural next reads are the Epitalon guide, how peptides work, and are peptides legal.

Sources

US Patent 7,662,789. "Peptide substance restoring myocardium function." Granted 2010 (Khavinson group). Retrieved 2026-06-16. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7662789B2/en
Khavinson, V.K., Popovich, I.G., Linkova, N.S., et al. "Peptide Regulation of Gene Expression: A Systematic Review." Molecules, 2021. PMID 34834147. Retrieved 2026-06-16. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34834147/
Chalisova, N.I., et al. "Effect of amino acids and cardiogen on development of myocard tissue culture from young and old rats." Advances in Gerontology, 2009. PMID 20210190. Retrieved 2026-06-16. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20210190/
Levdik, N.V., Knyazkin, I.V. "Tumor-modifying effect of cardiogen peptide on M-1 sarcoma in senescent rats." Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine, 2009. PMID 20396706. Retrieved 2026-06-16. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20396706/
Zakutskii, A.N., et al. "Tissue-specific effect of synthetic peptides-biologic regulators in organotypic tissue culture in young and old rats." Advances in Gerontology, 2006. PMID 17152728. Retrieved 2026-06-16. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17152728/
Wikipedia. "Vladimir Khavinson." Retrieved 2026-06-16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Khavinson
PubMed. Search results for "cardiogen peptide." Retrieved 2026-06-16. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=cardiogen+peptide
PubChem. Name search for "cardiogen" (no clean compound record located). Retrieved 2026-06-16. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
PeptideInsight. "Cardiogen." 2025. Retrieved 2026-06-16. https://peptideinsight.com/en/peptides/cardiogen
NovoPro Labs. "Cardiogen (AEDR)" product/data page (sequence, formula C18H31N7O9, MW 489.5). Retrieved 2026-06-16. https://www.novoprolabs.com/p/cardiogen-aedr-319695.html