Diabetes drug to help slow down ageing

Clinical trials have started for a miracle drug that could help adults live into their 120s. The Food and Drug Administration in America has given the green light to the trials of cheap drug metformin, which is used to treat people with Type-2 diabetes, on older people, the Daily Express reported.

The pill’s developers hope that it could one day wipe out diseases like Alzheimer’s can slow down the ageing process in humans, making those in their 70s as healthy a 50-year-old. “If you target an ageing process and you slow down ageing then you slow down all the diseases and pathology of ageing as well,” said Professor Gordon Lithgow of the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing in California, who will lead the study. Researchers have already proven that the diabetes drug metformin extends the life of animals. Now experts want to see if the same effects can be replicated in humans. The trials are expected to take five to seven years.