Could Humans Live to 120?
The very first anti-aging drug in the world is said to be tested on human beings next year in the trials that could see diseases including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease are consigned to a distant memory. Today, scientists believe that it’s possible to stop people from growing old quickly and help them live with good health well into their 120s or 110s.
New Era
Even if it seems like science fiction, the researchers have proven that Metformin, a drug for diabetes, extends the life of animals, and in the US, FDA has now agreed to ahead with the trials to know if the same effects could be replicated in the human beings. If successful, it just means that the person in their 70s will be as healthy as a fifty-year-old. It might be used in a whole new era of geosciences where the doctors would never fight against individual conditions such as dementia, diabetes, and cancer, but rather treat aging, which is an underlying mechanism.
Professor Gordon Lithgow, a Scottish aging expert of Buck Institute for Research on Aging, is basically one of the advisors in the field study. He stated that once you target the process of aging and slow down aging, it will slow down the diseases as well as aging’s pathology. He added that this is revolutionary and never happened in the previous years. Lithgow also said that he was researching for several years now, and the concept they’re trying to talk about, which is the clinical trials in the human beings for anti-aging drugs, would’ve been inconceivable. However, there’s a reason to believe that it is possible.
The future is taking the biology that they have now developed as well as implementing it to humans. Back then, the process of aging is a total mystery, yet with today’s advancement, many scientists and experts understand it slowly.
The Better Way to understand the Aging Process
Aging isn’t an inevitable part of one’s life because every cell contains a DNA blueprint that keeps the body functioning properly. Several marine creatures don’t age at all. But, over the lifetime, billions of the cell divisions should occur to the bodies functioning properly, and the more times the cells divide, the more issues creep in the process. As cell concerns grow, one’s body can’t repair the damage. In the case of cancer, the cells can’t prevent mutations, and the tumors start to grow. When it comes to Alzheimer’s disease, the brain gets rid of clearing the sticky plaques. Due to this, dementia starts to develop.
Overall
According to scientists, they are thinking of the best candidate for the anti-aging drug, and they end up with Metformin, which is the most widely used drug for diabetes in the world and available at an affordable price. Metformin increases the oxygen molecules released into the cells, which appear to improve longevity and robustness. When the Belgian researchers tested Metformin on tiny roundworms, the worms didn’t only age slower, but also stayed healthier longer. When they tested it on mice, nearly forty percent of their lifespan was increased, and their bones became much stronger.
