Ponce de León searched for the Fountain of Youth in Florida, but it might be found in the type 2 diabetes drug Metformin. A recent study showed that the medication has anti-aging properties that caused roundworms to age slower without developing skin wrinkles, and to experience better health. Some medical experts claim that the anti-diabetic drug might help to prevent chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Researchers from Cardiff University in Wales conducted a study on diabetes patients who received Metformin treatments. They found solid proof that the participants lived an average eight years longer.
Some researchers have claimed that the new diabetes drug could extend people's lives up to 120 years, according to Albany Daily Star. They argue that it might help people to stay healthy until they take their last breath.
Scientists have learned that all humans' cells include deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) coding with the power to keep a body functioning forever. In fact, some marine creatures do not experience any type of aging.
Such 'functionally immortal" animals never age and could in theory live forever unless an outside force killed them. They include hydra (near-microscopic animal), sea anemone, immortal jellyfish, rougheye rockfish, and lobsters.
Metformin has a low price tag. It works by increasing oxygen flow, which slows down cell divisions that keep people healthy and ironically also cause aging that leads to death.
The United States' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the Metformin medication for human clinical trials. They will start next year, according to 6ABC.
Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME) will test if the diabetes drug has the same anti-aging effect on humans as worms. The study will include 3,000 people between the ages of 70 to 80 years old who have (or are at risk of) heart disease, cancer, or dementia.
If the human clinical trials produce the same results as the roundworm, it would be a game-changer. Metformin-treated people who are 70 years would have the biological health of someone two decades younger.
Gordon Lithgow is a Californian Institute for Research on Aging researcher who will test the diabetes drug. He explained that the medication could slow down aging and the diseases that result from it.
This video explains human aging on a cellular level: