World’s first anti-ageing drug set for human tests in 2016

“If we were to cure all cancers it would only raise life expectancy by around three years, because something else is coming behind the cancer, but if we could slow down the ageing process you could dramatically improve how long people can live”, Lithgow told The Telegraph.

Let’s hope you’ve been paying into that pension pot – you might be enjoying that retirement for half a century.

The Food and Drug Administration has given the go-ahead for clinical trials of what may be the world’s first anti-aging medication to begin in winter 2016. One of the cheapest and widely used drug for diabetes, metformin, has shown promise in delaying the progression of aging in animal studies.

“I have been doing research into ageing for 25 years and the idea that we would be talking about a clinical trial in humans for an anti-ageing drug would have been thought inconceivable”, he said.

Research carried out by experts at Cardiff University past year suggested that diabetes sufferers who took the drug lived longer than people without the condition.

“If we can slow ageing in humans, even by just a little bit it would be monumental”, said Dr. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois, Chicago. If everything goes well, then a person in their 70s would have the mental, physical and biological age of 50-year-old.

Scientists are relying on its capability to boost the number of oxygen molecules released into a cell that enhances the strength and slows down ageing and makes people survive longer.

Their theory will be put to the test when the drug enters a human trial phase next year in the US.

Scientists now believe that it is possible to actually stop people growing old as quickly and help them live in good health well into their 110s and 120s. “Now we are starting to understand what is going on”.

The study, Targeting/Taming Aging With Metformin (TAME), is spearheaded by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and supported by the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR). As The Telegraph puts is, “ageing is not an inevitable part of life because all cells contain a DNA blueprint which could keep a body functioning correctly forever. If we can harness that, then everyone can achieve those lifespans”. The test will determine if metformin can delay the onset of multi-morbidities or diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cognitive decline and death.