Anti-ageing pill may undergo first clinical trial in US

A drug widely used for diabetes that could also help people live longer and healthier may soon undergo first clinical trial as an anti-ageing medicine in the US.
Metformin, a drug already used for diabetes, is known to prolong life in animals.
Last year researchers at Cardiff University reported that patients with type-2 diabetes who took metformin lived, on average, more than 15 per cent longer than a group of comparable healthy people.
Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Ageing Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, wants to take the research a step further by testing if the drug can prolong lives of 3,000 people who are not diabetic.

"Evidence from animal models and in vitro studies suggests that metformin changes metabolic and cellular processes associated with age-related conditions," Barzilai said.
Barzilai and his colleagues are in talks with the US Food and Drug Administration about the proposed trial, 'The Sunday Times' reported.

The researchers also have to persuade the agency to recognise ageing as a disease that can be treated, rather than just a natural unstoppable process.
The cost of the trial is estimated at 30 million pounds. It would enrol 3,000 patients, all aged 70-80, at 15 separate centres and then follow them for seven years to see how those taking the pill compared with a control group.

"The time has come to initiate clinical trials with the ultimate goal of increasing the healthspan (and perhaps longevity) of human populations," Barzilai said.