World’s First Anti-Ageing Drug Could Help You Live Until 120
Trials of the world’s first anti-ageing drug are set to start in 2016, potentially paving the way for humans to live until they reach 120 years old.
The common diabetes drug metformin has already been proven to prolong the life of animals and has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S for human clinical trials starting next year.
If successful, it could spell the end of diseases associated with ageing such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
If the drug was to prove successful in humans, it could effectively mark the beginning of a new era of medicine where ageing itself is treated with medication, rather than specific conditions.
Slowing down the ageing process would theoretically slow down any associated diseases, say experts.
This could potentially raise life expectancy, up to 120, it is claimed.
The drug being tested - metformin - costs just 10p a day.
Describing the process as ‘revolutionary’, study advisor Professor Gordon Lithgow of the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing in California said:
“I have been doing research into ageing for 25 years and the idea that we would be talking about a clinical trial in humans for an anti-ageing 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. 20 years ago ageing was a biological mystery. Now we are starting to understand what is going on.”
Image credit: ThinkStock/Randy Faris/Fuse
Via: The Telegraph
