A scientific breakthrough made the headlines as scientists were able to come up with a drug that slows down ageing. As per the Medical News Today, the first anti-aging drug that was formulated has the capability to make humans live longer.
As per The Telegraph, scientist studied that the diabetes drug 'metformin' could simply delay ageing, and the team would start a human trial by 2016. Though this drug may be too good to be true, the drug will be tested on individuals that are at risk of diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
As per the website, researchers proved that the drug has the capability to extend animal life. The Food and Drug Administration in the US already gave the team a go signal to proceed with the study to see if the effects will be applicable to humans.
One of the studies advisers, who is a Scottish ageing expert Professor Gordon Lithgow of the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing in California stated that:
"If you target an ageing process and you slow down ageing then you slow down all the diseases and pathology of ageing as well, that's revolutionary. That's never happened before. I have been doing research into ageing for 25 years and the idea that we would be talking about a clinical trial in humans for an anti-ageing drug would have been thought inconceivable. But there is every reason to believe it's possible. The future is taking the biology that we've now developed and applying it to humans. 20 years ago ageing was a biological mystery. Now we are starting to understand what is going on."
Dr Jay Olshansky, of the University of Illinois Chicago, who outlined the new study being featured on the National Geographic documentary, entitled Breakthrough: The Age of Ageing said:
"If we can slow ageing in humans, even by just a little bit it would be monumental. People could be older, and feel young. Enough advancements in ageing science have been made to lead us to believe it's plausible, it's possible, it's been done for other species and there is every reason to believe it could be done in us. This would be the most important medical intervention in the modern era, an ability to slow ageing."
