Ibuprofen may improve longevity: study

A common over-the-counter drug - Ibuprofen - that tackles pain and fever may also hold key to a longer, healthier life, a new research has claimed.
Regular doses of ibuprofen extended the lifespan of multiple species, researchers said.
"We first used baker's yeast, which is an established ageing model, and noticed that the yeast treated with ibuprofen lived longer," said Dr Michael Polymenis, an AgriLife Research biochemist in College Station.
"Then we tried the same process with worms and flies and saw the same extended lifespan. Plus, these organisms not only lived longer, but also appeared healthy," said Polymenis.
He said the treatment, given at doses comparable to the recommended human dose, added about 15 per cent more to the species lives. In humans, that would be equivalent to another dozen or so years of healthy living.

Ibuprofen is a relatively safe drug that was created in the early 1960s in England. It was first made available by prescription and then, after widespread use, became available over-the-counter throughout the world in the 1980s.

The World Health Organisation includes ibuprofen on their "List of Essential Medications" needed in a basic health system.
Polymenis said the three-year project showed that ibuprofen interferes with the ability of yeast cells to pick up tryptophan, an amino acid found in every cell of every organism.
Tryptophan is essential for humans, who get it from protein sources in the diet.
"We are not sure why this works, but it's worth exploring further. This study was a proof of principle to show that common, relatively safe drugs in humans can extend the lifespan of very diverse organisms," Polymenis said.

"Therefore, it should be possible to find others like ibuprofen with even better ability to extend lifespan, with the aim of adding healthy years of life in people," said Polymenis.
"We have some preliminary data on worms that showed that this drug also extended the health span in worms," said Chong He, a postdoctoral fellow at Buck Institute for Research on Ageing in Novato, California, and lead author on the paper.
"It made them live not just longer but also more healthy. You can measure the thrashing of the worms. If they're healthy, they do have a tendency to thrash a lot, and also we can measure the pumping as they swallow, because if they're healthy, the pumping is faster.

"Ibuprofen is something that people have been taking for years, and no one actually knew that it can have some benefits for longevity and health span," said Chong.
The research was published in the journal Public Library of Science, Genetics.