Diabetes Drug Metformin to be Tested as Anti-aging Drug by 1kiki

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Diabetes Drug Metformin to be Tested as Anti-aging Drug

POSTED BY: 1KIKI
UPDATED: Saturday, December 5, 2015 00:11
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Saturday, December 5, 2015 12:11 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Diabetes Drug Metformin to be Tested as Anti-aging Drug

http://www.dddmag.com/news/2015/12/diabetes-drug-metformin-be-tested-a
nti-aging-drug?et_cid=4977331&et_rid=366206770&type=headline

Diabetic patients who were given a drug called metformin lived eight years longer on average than those who did not have the disease, according to a British study published last year. It has also appeared to lengthen the lives of laboratory animals.

Now, metformin is being hailed as a potential anti-aging drug – and will be subject to human tests next year, just as Baby Boomers start to reach their 70s.

Targeting Aging with Metformin, or TAME, is a series of trials beginning next year, after a go-ahead from the FDA, according to the American Federation for Aging Research.

Multiple studies compared mortality, cancer incidence, cardiovascular disease and other factors over several years. All have indicated that metformin, the primary drug of choice to treat Type 2 diabetes could be an anti-aging medication, according to Nir Barzilai, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the AFAR.

Mouse and nematode models have shown increased longevity – apparently through an overall reduction of oxidative stress and inflammation, Barzilai said in an interview earlier this year.

“These observations suggest that the protective action of metformin may extend beyond effects on specific age-related diseases and provide compelling evidence to support the design and conduct of studies to directly test whether human aging, and its diseases, can be effectively delayed,” the scientist said.

The overall study will evaluate the condition and genomics of the participants, none of whom suffer from diabetes.

An entry on the national Clinical Trials website indicates that a smaller, 15-person study of the anti-aging effects of metformin was conducted from October and were expected to wrap up this month at Yeshiva University.

“The investigators believe that if metformin changes the biology of aging in tissues to a younger profile, it supports the notion that this drug may have more widespread use - as an ‘anti-aging’ drug,” the researchers wrote in May.

The metformin trials have gained considerable notoriety this week in the wake of a National Geographic documentary on the project which aired Sunday.

The anti-aging market is expected to grow by hundreds of billions of dollars each year, as the Baby Boomers live into their 70s, according to several analyses. Part of the market so far has been hormone therapy, drug cocktails and other tactics to turn back the clock, which have not yet been proven scientifically.

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