Can Thymalin Rejuvinate the Thymus Gland?

A healthy and functional thymus gland improves the body’s immunity against infections, helps prevent cancer, and enhances lifespan. The thymus gland and the hormones it secretes in our body acts like an elixir that boosts immunity and healthy aging. It helps survive childhood infections, prevents cancer onset, and acts as a pacemaker for the human lifespan. It was considered a vestigial organ only before discovering its relevance by Jacques Miller in the early 1960s.

The Main Immune Organ

The bi-lobed thymus gland is located in the center of the chest behind the sternum, equidistant between the lungs just above the heart. Each lobe appears bumpy due to the smaller sections called lobules. It facilitates the incubation and development of T cells critical for immunity. It remains a mystery that the thymus functions best when we are young and weakens with age. This explains the fewer effects of COVID-19 on children compared to adults. Our thymus atrophies with passing age and gets functionally weaker.

The nascent T cells travel from bone marrow to the thymus and undergo “thymic maturation.” They get selected for their efficiency and mature into CD4+ “helper” or CD8+ “killer” lymphocytes. Thus they play diverse key roles like vaccination response, resistance to viral infections, allergies, autoimmunity and inflammatory cascade, tissue repair, regulating healthy pregnancy, etc.

Thymus also produces immune regulators called cytokines that can kill a patient by “cytokine storm,” such as in initial coronavirus infections if produced in excess. The cytokine storms are common in older patients compared to young people with the functional thymus. It also secretes hormones, namely thymosins, thymopoiten, and thymulin peptides and interleukins, a class of immune-modulating molecules like IL-6 that influence the inflammatory response to infection and helps to combat cancer. Thymosin helps to regulate aging and maintains the immune balance.
The only method to assess thymic function is through T and B-lymphocyte tests to assess the immune status.

The Thymus as Lifespan Pacemaker

In the 1930s, a Swiss physician, Dr. Paul Niehans, was among the first to introduce animal thymic extracts into patients. In 1955, another Swiss physician and student of Niehans’, Dr. Alfred Pfister, developed a method to stabilize processed thymus cells to avoid using fresh extracts. And in the 1970s, a Swedish physician, Dr. Elis Sandberg, developed a high molecular thymus extract which is still used today for thymus restorative therapy.

The gland in humans ages faster than other organs and reaches 1/6 of its maximum weight by 75 years. Atrophy of the thymus leads to increased chances of infection, autoimmunity, and a high cancer incidence. The majority of physicians and doctors are not aware of the relevance of thymus glands towards aging. The weakening of the thymus leads to chronic fatigue syndrome and slower wound healing. Hence it becomes relevant to develop a model of thymus deficiency to study its medical effects and find means to restore thymic function.

Strategies to Regenerate Thymic Function

Restoring the thymus is crucial to surviving infections, stopping cancer, and prolonging health during aging. Europeans attach more importance to healthy thymic functions than Americans, including thymus injections, food supplements, and herbs that regenerate the gland.
Thymus-Friendly Diet & Lifestyle are crucial for sustained regeneration of the thymus and restoration of immune strength. A plant-based healthy diet rich in micronutrients and proteins supports healthy immunity healthy aging. Undisturbed sleep of longer duration enhances overall good health. Uptake of melatonin not only improves sleep quality but reverses age-related thymic involution and immune function of the spleen.

Nutrients & Plant Compounds

Zinc plays an essential role in growth and development and is necessary for a healthy immune system. A zinc deficiency causes reduced T cell function, slower wound healing, and other immune system defects. Zinc is the first-line therapy for thymus restoration.

Vitamin A supports the thymus and stimulates the immune response. Daily supplementation with high-dose vitamin C maintains the size and weight of the thymus and increases the number of T cells. Selenium also boosts immunity against viruses and cancer. Astragaloside IV is an extract of the traditional Chinese medicine Huangqi (Astragalus membranaceous). It helps improve energy, build stamina, and prevent common illnesses like a cold or the flu, and slow aging. It contains numerous biochemically active compounds such as polysaccharides, flavonoids, and saponins which enhance telomerase activity, have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immunoregulatory effects.

Thymus Gland Extracts

Glandular extracts have a long history of use in Europe, and traditional Chinese medicine remains unknown through their mode of action. There is clinical evidence that the thymus and the spleen extract control inflammation, speed wound healing, help eliminate viruses and inhibit cancer cells. Thymic Protein A (TPA) is an oral nutritional supplement made from calf thymus with immune-modulating and antiviral properties. Despite limited research, TPA was observed to support CD4+ helper T lymphocytes and reverse thymus atrophy, strengthening the thymus’ role in programming T cells.

Immune Supportive Supplement Cocktails

A comprehensive approach works best, including thymus live cell injections and oral extracts. Immuno Caps from Priority One contain nutrients, the herb echinacea, organ extracts, and thymus enzyme polypeptide fractions. Along with medicinal mushroom extracts and beta-glucan, it is found to be invaluable in preventing infections. Formulas like this serve as cornerstones for restoring immune integration.

Supercharge Your Thymus Function

The natural ways to enhance thymus health are foundational and useful as a starting point. Optimization of thymus function, treating chronic disease, and adjunctive therapy for cancer require close work with personal physicians for best outcomes.

Thymalin Live Cell Injections

So-called “live cell” glandular therapies are pharmaceutically prepared extracts of the thymus and other animal glands for injection. The therapeutic goal is to bring back immune homeostasis, a natural balanced state of how the body defends against and prevents disease. A standard course involves intramuscular injections given daily for ten days to prime the immune system. A combination of thymus and spleen cell therapy works well for immune restoration. Weekly or monthly injections can follow the initial course. European laboratories follow rigid standards to produce live-cell preparations in German and Switzerland. They are considered safe with rare side effects. They are not FDA-approved for use in the United States; however, naturopathic doctors provide these therapies.

Thymic Peptides and Hormone Injections – Thymalin

Thymic peptides are pharmaceutical preparations synthesized from E. coli. They help restore and balance the immune response. Thymalin is the synthetic version of thymulin and was first isolated from the thymus gland in 1977. Thymalin helps to reduce inflammation, increases T cell activity, and raises immunoglobulin A, and it has neuroprotective effects. Post 60 years of age, the thymus stops synthesizing immunoglobulin A. Anti-aging physicians use combinations of thymalin and pineal gland peptides for life extension. Thymosin Beta 4 (TB-500) protects against viral infections and enhances tissue regeneration for wound healing. It also promotes bone remodeling from fractures, including spinal stress fractures due to osteoporosis. Thymosin Alpha-1 is considered a potent immune regulator. It supports immune function against chronic viruses and fungal infections. Hormones such as Human growth hormone (HGH) and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) also improve the function of thymus cells and may influence thymus gland size. During aging, the production of HGH and IGF-1 decline, and immunity weakens. Animal studies show that boosting IGF-1 restores thymic size and function and may increase T cell count.

SUMMARY

A healthy, well-functioning thymus gland is necessary to protect the body from infections and ward off cancer. It also sets the pace of aging. The gland functions best at a young age. With progressing age, the thymus loses its competency and often fails to protect against cancer and viral infections, like influenza and coronaviruses. Though zinc is the cornerstone nutrient for a competent thymus, additional nutrients, oral and injectable organ extracts, peptides, and hormones also contribute to regenerate the thymus gland. Governments and researchers spend a lot of time and money on methods to destroy viruses, including the new coronavirus, but most of these efforts are rendered unsuccessful. Vaccination makes more immunological sense, but keeping our immunity relevant is a better solution. Restoring immune homeostasis is an overlooked means to prolong health during aging.

Disclaimer: The products mentioned are not for human or animal consumption. All the information shared in this article is for educational purposes only.