(Newswire.net — December 2, 2015) — Scientists believe that one of the drugs most commonly used for treating diabetes, called ‘Metformin’ has a secret of long life in its components. Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease may be relegated to history very soon if the first anti-ageing drug passes test on humans. Difficult to imagine?
Apparently, it is quite possible to stop ageing, and thus people may be able to live up to 120 years. Will they look younger, too? Up to now, it has been proved that Metformin works on animals, which was a reason enough for US Food and Drug Administration to give its consent for trials on humans. If it worked, it would mean that, as a comparison, someone who is 70 would be 50 years of biological age and that doctors would treat ageing, not diseases. Professor Gordon Lithgow (the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing, California) says: “If you target an ageing process and you slow down ageing, than you slow down all the diseases and pathology as well”.
It turns out that ageing is no longer a mystery and since there are some sea creatures that never age, why wouldn’t it be possible for humans, too? But there is caution to this tale. It is vital that our body functions in the right way, because if cells divide many times more, errors occur and the damage cannot be repaired infinitely.
When Metformin was tested on worms and mice, they were found to live much longer and remained healthier. Last year, Cardiff University carried out a research which showed that people who had diabetes and were treated with Metformin lived eight years longer than people without diabetes, and lived longer than they were themselves supposed to. Dr Simon Melow of the Buck institute for Ageing Research said:”You’re talking about developing a therapy for a biological phenomenon which is universal and gives rise to all of diseases. And if you’ve got therapy for this thing, the diseases just go away”. It is questionable whether elderly or people in poor health would like to live 30 to 40 years longer at their present state, but if this drug proves to be working, many diseases like cancer, braincell deficiency, and diabetes could be stopped and maybe even eradicated. If this becomes reality, old age doesn’t seem so bleak and depressing, people will be able to enjoy life more, be more active than today, feel more useful and work longer and retire much later. If there is possibility for this drug to be given to young people in the form of a vaccine, then sky is the limit.