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Doctors and scientists want drug regulators and research funding agencies to consider medicines that delay ageing-related disease as legitimate drugs. Such treatments have a physiological basis, researchers say, and could extend a person's healthy years by slowing down the processes that underlie common diseases of ageing — making them worthy of government approval. On 24 June, researchers will meet with regulators from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make the case for a clinical trial designed to show the validity of the approach.
Current treatments for diseases related to ageing "just exchange one disease for another", says physician Nir Barzilai of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. That is because people treated for one age-related disease often go on to die from another relatively soon thereafter. "What we want to show is that if we delay ageing, that's the best way to delay disease."
takyon: The "pill" in question is the drug metformin, currently used to treat type 2 diabetes under the brand name Glucophage. People with type 2 diabetes will not be enrolled in the anti-aging trial.
Original Submission
(Score: 1) by dusty monkey on Friday June 19 2015, @03:37AM
If you want to learn what its like to urinate out our anus, just take some of this metformin. This is not a fun drug at all. Crazy to think that they are thinking about giving it to people that do not have immediate health problems.
- when you vote for the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for evil - stop supporting evil -
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday June 19 2015, @04:50AM
Probably due for a colon exorcism anyways..
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Friday June 19 2015, @04:51AM
Pfft. So says a typing monkey.
I'd be willing to take some side effects to live decades longer. Maybe even a freeze in a cryogenic tube to keep me "alive" until a cure is ready.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday June 19 2015, @05:45AM
How about just eating a healthy diet, shutting off the computer for a while and getting out for some exercise.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 19 2015, @09:37AM
That's just crazy talk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @02:14PM
Why not a combination of things, like taking anti-aging pills *and* having a healthy diet and getting exercise?
(Score: 2) by tathra on Friday June 19 2015, @09:22PM
even with that, you're still not going to live past 120, if you even get that far. lots of people have genetic timebombs waiting to go off too (alzheimer's, parkinson's, etc), diet and exercise won't do much to prevent or treat those (though i believe its been shown to help and delay onset). diet and exercise should be used on top of other [proven] anti-aging medicines, sure, but they are no means a cure-all, nor they guaranteed to work the same for everyone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @07:26AM
I can see Eth using this recreationally, paired with the boner pills. Is that wrong? (Answer: yes)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @10:30AM
And a touch of lactic acidosis, just for good measure. Metformin is a terrible drug.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @01:43PM
Well, you are at least talking out of your ass.
Metformin is one of the most widely prescribed medicines for Type II Diabetes , and has one of the best records for lack of side effects.
I've been on it for years, with no problems whatsoever, and my doctor tells me it's the first prescription he writes for someone who has A1c over 7.5. He has hundreds, if not thousands, of patients on it with very rare reports of negative side effects.
It's generic, cheap, and effective at reducing fasting/baseline blood sugar levels.
How about you come back when you are smarter.
(Score: 1) by TestablePredictions on Saturday June 20 2015, @12:24AM
So a longer-life filled with constant painful diarrhea, or a regular-length life with only baseline levels of diarrhea?
*Flips coin* ... Hmm ...