Can hypertension drug increase your lifespan?
/A commonly available blood pressure medication may help to lengthen human life.
Researchers from the United States and Europe said the hypertension drug rilmenidine could be used to extend life. Writing in the journal “Aging Cell”, the scientists argue that the drug has significant potential to extend both lifespan and health span.
Dr. João Pedro Magalhães, an author of the study and chair of molecular biogerontology at the University of Birmingham, said rilmenidine appears to mimic the effects of caloric restriction, which has consistently been found to be beneficial to longevity.
“Our … method works by identifying drugs that exhibit molecular signatures similar to caloric restriction and allowed us to identify various compounds as candidates for slowing aging,” he told Medical News Today. “We … decided to focus on rilmenidine because it is orally available with human clinical uses and modest, rare side effects. … It is an attractive drug for repositioning for other age-related diseases and anti-aging in general.”
To test the impact of rilmenidine, researchers tested the drug on the roundworm caenorhabditis elegans, which lives only a few weeks.
“We found that animals treated with rilmenidine live significantly longer, about 20%, than controls,” Magalhães said. “We also found lifespan and health span benefits in both young and old animals.”
The researcher said it’s too early to use rilmenidine as a longevity therapy because more research is needed to assess the drug’s effectiveness as an anti-aging product. But he said that is inevitable.
“I do think it will be possible to repurpose longevity drugs, including rilmenidine, for other age-related diseases, subject of course to more studies,” Magalhães said. “I think first we will see longevity drugs being repurposed for other age-related diseases and, if successful, I envision a future where we have longevity drugs used as anti-aging as a form of preventive intervention or prophylaxis.”
In fact, several FDA-approved drugs are already being prescribed off-label to extend human life. Many practices specializing in longevity medicine routinely prescribe drugs like the anti-rejection medication rapamycin, the diabetes therapy metformin, and the polyphenol resveratrol as part of a regimen aimed at fighting the effects of aging – and even slowing the aging process.
But we agree with Magalhães that that use of these and other medicines must be done cautiously. And we believe off-label use of drugs should only be done under careful supervision by well informed medical providers. However, we also believe that the promise of repurposing medications is enormous and should get priority from researchers looking to cure the illnesses of aging.