Exciting Anti-Aging Human Study on Metformin Wins FDA Approval
BY Judy Stevens
News Reports around World Describe Multiple Benefits
The media has caught up to the potential health benefits of metformin, something our long-term supporters discovered long ago.
What caught the media’s attention was the FDA’s approval of the first human study to see if metformin can protect against the multiple diseases of aging.
Prominent headlines around the world proclaimed:
“New Anti-Aging Drug Could Extend Human Life Span to 120 Years”
Metformin of course is not a new drug. It was approved in England in 1957 and made available to type II diabetics around the world shortly thereafter. It took the FDA a staggering 37 years to approve it in the United States.
Here are some accurate quotes from worldwide news sources:
“Although it might seem like science fiction, researchers have already proven that the diabetes drug metformin extends the life of animals, and the Food and Drug Administration in the US has now given the go-ahead for a trial to see if the same effects can be replicated in humans.”
“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…20 years ago aging was a biological mystery. Now we are starting to understand what is going on.”
“Scientists think the best candidate for an anti-aging drug is metformin, the world’s most widely used diabetes drug, which costs just 10p [15 cents] a day. Metformin increases the number of oxygen molecules released into a cell, which appears to boost robustness and longevity.”
“If we can slow aging in humans, even by just a little bit, it would be monumental. People could be older, and feel young.”
“This would be the most important medical intervention in the modern era, an ability to slow aging.”
Even the venerable Dr. Robert Temple, deputy director at the FDA, chimed in by stating:
“Their hope is that a wide variety of age-related problems, loss of muscle tone, dizziness, falls, dementia, loss of eyesight, all of those things [sic]. That would be something never done before. If you really are doing something to alter aging, the population of interest is everybody. It surely would be revolutionary if they can bring it off.”
Dr. Simon Melov of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging added:
“You’re talking about developing a therapy for a biological phenomenon which is universal and gives rise to all of these diseases. And if you’ve got a therapy for this thing, these diseases just go away.”
Metformin’s Primary Anti-Aging Mechanism
Metformin enhances the activity of an enzyme found within our cells called adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase—or AMPK for short. AMPK activation helps mimic the beneficial effects of calorie restriction, the best documented method of slowing and reversing biomarkers of human aging.