The drug nearly doubled the lifespan of lab animals

Researchers use a drug mixture to help worms and fruit flies live longer and healthier, opening up potential applications in humans.

The team led by Dr. Jan Gruber at Yale-NUS University, Singapore, found a mixture of drugs that helps prolong healthy life and reduce the rate of aging in worms and fruit flies and Science Daily on October 22 reported. This laid the foundation for further research to create drugs that have similar effects in mammals.

Caenorhabditis elegans is used in drug testing.(Photo: Jan Gruber).

Scientists combine a number of drugs towards the different aging pathways of the Caenorhabditis elegans . The results showed that the combination of the two drugs helped the worms live longer than when using each type separately. When combined with a third type, the lifespan of worms almost doubled. This is the best longevity effect ever when testing drugs in adult animals.

The new method does not cause unwanted harm to the health of worms. Researchers also found that worms of all ages using the drug had a longer healthy life.

This is very important for human research with the goal of increasing healthy life, not just prolonging life. At that time, people will also gain great benefits in medicine and economics."We will benefit not only because we live longer but also because of the prolongation of time without age-related diseases such as arthritis, cardiovascular disease, cancer or Alzheimer's," Dr. Gruber said.

Gruber and his colleagues collaborated with Professor Nicholas Tolwinski at Yale-NUS University and discovered that fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) when using the same drug mixture significantly increased life expectancy. The fact that two different evolutionary organisms are extending their lifespan shows that the new method has a wider potential for application.