Could this pill stop ageing?
A cure for ageing. It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, the solution may already be on the market.
Metformin, a pill that is commonly used today, is dispensed to people with type two diabetes. The medication, which has been used for over 60 years, reduces the body’s insulin sensitivity by prompting the liver to lessen its glucose production. But that’s not all it could do.
According to studies, the pill might also slow down ageing. Scientists have used Metaformin on mice and worms, and found in both a delay of onset diseases and an increase in life span.
So what’s the problem? Well, the pill has not yet been tested for age-treatment purposes on humans. Scientists have proposed a trial in which they study thousands of elderly people who either have diseases or at a high risk of developing them. They would then administer the drug to the test subjects and track their lifespans and health accordingly.
“What we want to show is that if we delay ageing, that’s the best way to delay disease,” physician Nir Barzilai told Nature.com. The aim of the scientists is to treat ageing as a curable disorder in and of itself.
But if you were expecting this pill to act as a “fountain of youth” miracle, it might fall short of your expectations. “The perception is that we are all looking for a fountain of youth,” said executive director of New York’s American Federation for Aging Research, Stephanie Lederman, “…what we’re trying to do is increase health span, not look for eternal life.”
Researchers were set to sit down with the US Food and Drug Administration to propose this clinical trial. Unfortunately, the trial is estimated to cost upwards of 50 million American dollars. But if it does pass, this could mean healthier and longer lives for us all.