Intermedin

Where it comes from

Made in

Pituitary, gut, placenta, heart, kidney

Sent out by

Hypoxia and pregnancy raise it

Acts on

• Blood vessels
• Heart muscle
• Placenta
• Hypothalamus

What it does

• Lowers blood pressure and strengthens the heartbeat in animals ¹
• Takes part in placental vessel growth and in how the trophoblast handles immune recognition ²
• Reduces food intake when given into the brain of a rat ¹

In medicine

• No medicine and no test. Levels come from research assays that do not separate it cleanly from adrenomedullin ¹
• A weakened intermedin system is reported in pre-eclampsia and in fetal growth restriction, from placental and plasma studies rather than from trials ²
• Because it works through the same receptors as adrenomedullin and CGRP without preferring any of them, anything built on it would hit all three; that is one reason no programme has started ¹

Beyond the body’s own use

• It protects the heart, kidney and lung vessels in rodent models of heart attack, kidney injury and pulmonary hypertension. No human trial has been registered
• The appetite claims come from brain injections in rats; nothing has been tested in a person, and the dose that reduces feeding also drops blood pressure ¹
• The open question is whether it does anything in an adult that adrenomedullin does not. It was found by searching a genome for relatives rather than by chasing an effect, and that order still shows ¹