Medicine For Longer Lifespan
Medicine For Longer Lifespan
Medicine for longer lifespan sounds far-fetched, but it’s already happening in the
form of cheap drugs that people take every day. These drugs, such as aspirin and
the widely used anti-diabetic drug metformin sports.frontalreport, have been found to extend the
lifespan of small animals in studies, and may also slow the aging process in humans.
The future of longevity medicines lies in combination treatments, combining the
power of drugs with lifestyle changes and other healthy practices that can help to
slow the onset of age-related diseases. One of these approaches involves the use of
a protein called mTOR, which is believed to regulate the activity of many genes
related to aging. Inhibiting mTOR reduces the ability of cells to produce energy,
which can make them more resilient to the effects of ageing.
Another approach is to target a group of proteins, known as STACs (structural
transmembrane activators of calcium), which are involved in the maintenance of cell
shape. These proteins are crucial to the physiology of older animals, and
suppressing their function can improve their lifespan and healthspan.
A third strategy is to use drugs that inhibit senescent cells, which are the cells in the
body that start to break down and contribute to aging. This can be done by a variety
of strategies, such as transplanting senescent cells into the animal’s tissue, or using
drugs that destroy these rogue cells.
While senescent cells aren’t necessarily a bad thing, they do cause chronic
inflammation, which can lead to an increased risk of cancer and heart disease.
Researchers have found that a combination of two different senolytic drugs can
prevent the deterioration of senescent cells and delay the onset of age-related
diseases in mice, by causing them to divide less often.
The results of this study were published in Nature Aging on April 25. They show that
when an anti-cancer drug called rapamycin is given to healthy middle-aged mice for
a period of time, they live significantly longer than normal, extending their median
lifespan by about ten percent.
These drugs, which are currently undergoing clinical trials for several other purposes
in humans, have the potential to improve the lives of millions. In addition to
extending lifespan, they can help to reduce the risk of age-related chronic disease
and lower overall health care costs.
If these drugs do work in humans, they could dramatically alter the future of health-
extending medicine. The most effective option would be to delay the onset of
chronic diseases, which would create a more pleasant life for patients and save
them from unnecessary and costly hospitalizations.
This is one of the major reasons that so many people are focusing on life extension.
But while this is an important goal, it’s not the only way to lengthen human life.
Longevity research is not without its problems, and some of the drugs that have
been proposed to prolong a healthy lifespan in animals have failed in testing on
mice. For example, the popular diabetes medication metformin failed in ITP trials
because of dosage issues or differences between mouse and human biology.