Dr Walter Pierpaoli MD PhD
Born in Milano, graduates in Medicine at the University  of Milano in 1960.
Works as assistant and researcher at the Institute of General Pathology and obtains a PhD in Immunology. From 1963 until 1969 occupies the position of Laboratory Director at the Center of Cellular Pathology of the Italian National Research Council in Milano. Moves to Switzerland in 1969 as Head of Neuroimmunology Laboratory at the Swiss Institute of Medical Research in Davos-Platz, where he stays  until 1977.
Director of the NeuroImmuno Modulation (NIM) Laboratory at the University of Zurich until  1980. In 1980 he establishes his own Research Laboratory and Institute for Integrative Biomedical Research  and the INTERBION Foundation for Basic Biomedical Research in Zurich. In 1988 the Institute and the Foundation are moved to Ticino, South Switzerland,. He is now Director of the "Jean Choay Institute for Neuroimmunomodulation" in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland. His scientific and clinical activity estends from basic research to clinical studies of new anti-aging interventions and therapies, and a totally new transplantation method based on a  discovery and granted patents. He is author of over 130 publications on refereed scientific journals and organizer of the "Stromboli Conferences on Aging and Cancer" in 1987, 1990, 1993 and 2005. He has also published popular books such as the "Melatonin Miracle", translated into 15 languages and a New York Times bestseller (1995).

Aging-Reversing Properties of Thyrotropin Releasing Hormone (TRH)

Work in our laboratory has shown the remarkable and varied  effects of TRH
in the rapid reversal of aging-related changes and alterations in old rodents. It was also demonstrated that these restoring effects of TRH were not exerted via the thyroid gland,  with the obvious increase of synthesis or secretion of thyroid  hormones, but depended on a newly found and rather unexpected direct activity of TRH.  We suggested that the tripeptide TRH,  thanks to its ubiquitous localization in nature and its high concentration in key tissues such as the  pineal gland, the pancreatic insulin-producing beta cells and the anterior hypothalamic area, represents a vehicle for most fundamental energy-regulating and hormone-synchronizing  activities.
In fact, the restoring effects of TRH could be seen  in all models used, such as  aging, immunodeficient animals, virus-infected and stressed mice, hypothalamus lesioned mice and in particular in old animals with typical  adiposity and  progressive decay of neuroendocrine, immune and hormonal  functions. TRH  associated to melatonin normalizes lipid metabolism and  prolongs longevity in aging mice.  All this previous work prompted us to study the effects of short-term, acute administration of TRH or its chronic  oral administration,  on organs, tissues and aging-related metabolic and hormonal markers,  in order to acquire more knowledge on effects, dosage and timing of administration according to its circadian cyclicity.  In addition, we wanted to verify its anti-aging effects on two most fundamental functions, namely gonadal- reproductive  and  kidney-urinary.
The results  demonstrate that  both a short-term, acute or a chronic, long-term oral  administration of  TRH to old, aging mice, results into  positive changes and rapid correction to more juvenile levels of most typical aging-related hormonal and metabolic alterations.
Remarkably, 4-month oral  treatment with TRH maintains testes function in aging mice. As hinted by the significant increase of testes weight,  TRH taken from the drinking water produces a maintenance and/or reconstitution of  testes structure and function as shown by active proliferation and formation of mature spermatogonia and intensive  spermatogenesis in the follicles. Apparently TRH greatly enhances the final maturation process of  spermatogonia to spermatozoa.
4-month oral treatment with TRH  protects the kidneys from amylod and hyalin infiltration of  both tubuli and glomeruli, which is typical of aging mice. In fact, massive deposits of amyloid and hyalin material are clearly  infiltrating the shrunken glomeruli of untreated mice with loss of filtration capacity, while hardly present in TRH-treated mice.  Massive hyalin degeneration can also be observed in the  tubular vessels of the untreated control mice.
The extensive and repeated experiments with parenteral and oral administration of TRH show a most remarkable aging-delaying and  apparently even aging-reversing  effects of  the neuropeptide TRH.  Again, similarly to melatonin, we are confronted  with  an anti-aging agent with a broad spectrum of activities which must be necessarily linked to a most fundamental role in the regulation of  metabolic and hormonal functions.
Pierpaoli, W. and Yi, C.X. The involvement of pineal gland and melatonin in immunity and aging. I. Thymus-mediated, immunoreconstituting and antiviral activity of thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH). J. Neuroimmunol. 27: 99-109, 1990.                                                                                  Pierpaoli, W., Bulian D., Bulian G., and Kistler, G. Thyrotropin releasing hormone (THR) accelerates and enhances the aging-postponing effects of melatonin. J. Anti-Aging Med 2: 343-348,1999.

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