I'm not joking with that title, right now there is an ongoing clinical trial for a drug that could save your life - literally YOUR life, the person reading this.
Right now, everyone on this planet suffers from the disease of aging, and it is just that - a disease - and one that causes multiple other diseases such as heart disease, cancer and senile dementia.
What it is
The molecule seen above is the anti-diabetic drug known as Metformin - something that has been known for years as a possible anti-aging drug. People on metformin for diabetes have been found to suffer from far lower mortality rates from all medical causes. Metformin drastically lowers rates of cancer while also upregulating DNA repair mechanisms via the AMPK pathway.
What is truly exciting is it appears to actually partially reverse some damage, and it also appears to act in a similar fashion to caloric restriction - without the need to actually restrict calories.
Read a meta-review here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.ololo.sci-hub.io/pubmed/21882902
What has changed
Until now, it wasn't clear how safe metformin was for use by regular people, nor was it approved for use in treating aging alone. That is set to change with a pilot trial to study the use of metformin to target aging - and if the trial is successful it will get FDA approval for use in treating aging itself.
Read about the study here and keep an eye on it: https://www.afar.org/natgeo/
Every single person on this planet could benefit from this work, even if not everyone can take metformin (since it isn't suited for all patients unfortunately).
For me personally, I plan to start taking 500mg daily unless side effects manifest - for everyone else, go speak to your doctor and get a prescription.
It sounds like a really good medicine. We should just be cautious though before taking it. :)
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With any drug you should always be careful and seek a doctor's advice on whether it's right for you. What excites me about metformin is it's on the path to become the first medication licensed for treating aging itself and is generally well tolerated by most people - and it's cheap too.
When the current study concludes I really hope it starts being prescribed en masse for aging and I also hope the attention on metformin inspires further work in the field of interventive biogerontology.
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Fun fact - my order of it arrived from the pharmacy today and it was the wrong med - always double check before you take a new med :)
I am expecting the correct stuff (pure metformin as opposed to metformin+glimepiride combo) to come tomorrow and will post to let people know about side effects etc.
One caution for anyone interested: DO NOT consume alcohol with metformin, the combo can be lethal - which is the exact opposite of the whole point.
Since I don't consume alcohol anyway it's not a big deal for me, but a lot of people like a drink.
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This post received a 2% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @paolospeaks! For more information, click here!
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Awesome post, I really enjoyed it. I hope you appreciate the vote!
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This post has received a 4.55 % upvote from @nettybot thanks to: @garethnelsonuk.
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