[This article was originally published on Dan Elton's blog, More is Different.]

Cerebrolysin is an unregulated medical product made from enzymatically digested pig brain tissue. Hundreds of scientific papers claim that it boosts BDNF, stimulates neurogenesis, and can help treat numerous neural diseases. It is widely used by doctors around the world, especially in Russia and China.

A recent video of Bryan Johnson injecting Cerebrolysin has over a million views on X and 570,000 views on YouTube. The drug, which is advertised as a “peptide combination”, can be purchased easily online and appears to be growing in popularity among biohackers, rationalists, and transhumanists. The subreddit r/Cerebrolysin has 3,100 members.

TL;DR

Unfortunately, our investigation indicates that the benefits attributed to Cerebrolysin are biologically implausible and unlikely to be real. Here's what we found:

Cerebrolysin has been used clinically since the 1950s, and has escaped regulatory oversight due to some [...]

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Outline:

(00:56) TL;DR

(02:50) Introduction

(04:03) The long history of Cerebrolysin

(07:31) Cerebrolysin.com is full of scientific errors

(13:43) The evidence base for Cerebrolysin contains conflicts of interest and a statistically improbable rate of success

(17:52) So WTH is Cerebrolysin?

(24:51) We only found one study giving evidence of neurotrophic factors in Cerebrolysin, and it's kinda sus

(26:45) HPLC-mass spectroscopy of Cerebrolysin fails to show any neurotrophic peptides

(28:38) Storage instructions are incongruent with peptides and there is no immune response

(30:57) The putative active ingredients are unlikely to cross the blood-brain barrier

(36:34) Concluding metascience thoughts

The original text contained 6 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 12 images which were described by AI.

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First published:
August 6th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZznBxPdZEB6ETeZvS/wth-is-cerebrolysin-actually

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“WTH is Cerebrolysin, actually?” by gsfitzgerald, delton137

LessWrong (30+ Karma)