If there were such a thing as a miracle drug, it would ideally do this: prevent wrinkles, cure terminal illness and help you live longer.
And now, scientists think that not only does such a drug exist, but it’s been under their noses for years.
The Telegraph reports that researchers have already proven that a common diabetes drug called metformin extends the life of animals and slows the aging process at the cellular level. In a trial on roundworms, worms that were treated with the drug lived healthier and longer. The worms did not slow down as they aged and did not develop wrinkles. In another study with mice, the drug led to a 40 percent increase in lifespan and stronger bones.
Researchers are so convinced by initial results that they are starting a groundbreaking human trial in 2016. The new clinical trial, called Targeting Aging with Metformin, or TAME, will begin next winter in the U.S. The tests, however, will primarily be focused on a few matters more urgent than skin care, such as if it can stop age-related diseases like dementia, Alzheimer’s and heart diseases.
“If you target an aging process and you slow down aging, then you slow down all the diseases and pathology of aging as well,” Gordon Lithgow of the Buck Institute of Research in Aging tells The Telegraph. “That’s revolutionary. That’s never happened before. I have been doing research into aging for 25 years and the idea that we would be talking about a clinical trial in humans for an anti-aging drug would have been though inconceivable. But, there is every reason to believe it’s possible. The future is taking the biology that we’ve now developed and applying it to humans. Twenty years ago aging was a biological mystery. Now we are starting to understand what is going on.”
