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Diabetes Drug Metformin Believed To Slow Down Aging Process

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Could a diabetes drug hold the secret to living a longer, healthier life?

Image via Pixabay

A diabetes medication known as Metformin, which claims anti-aging abilities capable of extending the span of human life by up to 120 years, has been approved for human trials by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

As a result of the FDA’s recent green-lighting of human trials, researchers will explore the longevity potential of the drug in a clinical trial called TAME, which is short for Targeting Aging with Metformin.

The trial, according to Newsmax, is to focus on those at risk for or afflicted by one or two of the following health conditions: cognitive impairment, heart disease and cancer.

The anti-aging drug’s human trials are scheduled to begin next year. As Fox News reports, if all goes well, humans could live to the ripe old age of 120 and, right up until the end, find themselves in good health.

Metformin has been previously tested on roundworms by Belgian scientists who documented positive results.

Professor Gordon Lithgow, an expert in aging, was quoted by Fox News as having said that he’s “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 thought inconceivable.” Still, Lithgow notes that “there is every reason to believe it’s possible.”

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 thought 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.

Dr. Lithgow, PhD, a professor with the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, told The Telegraph that researchers are just beginning to wrap their heads around the mysteries of aging — making possible the development of more effective drugs.

The drug, which costs pennies to make, works on the cellular level to enhance the flow of oxygen which slows the cell divisions that lead to aging.

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