Are Pharmacological Approaches to Slow Aging in Fact Promising?

Today's open access review paper looks over a selection of what I would consider to be largely unpromising small molecules, each with evidence for their ability to slow aging, but very modestly and unreliably in most cases. Looking at the bigger picture, for much of the public it is still surprising to hear that the pace of aging can be adjusted via any form of therapy, so there is probably a role for simple, low-cost small molecule drugs in the process of education that leads to more serious efforts aimed at producing the means of human rejuvenation. Still, entirely too much effort is devoted towards small molecules that have inconsistent animal data (such as metformin), and also small effect sizes (such as metformin), and further are probably outpaced by the benefits of exercise - metformin again, but near all of the panoply of other calorie restriction mimetics that function via upregulation of cellular stress responses such as autophagy. There are small molecules that are worth the effort, however. For example, senolytic therapies that selectively destroy senescent cells and produce rapid rejuvenation in animal models. This is far more interesting than the marginal slowing of aging produced by improved cell maintenance, not least because a single senolytic treatment results in lasting improvement as a result of the reduced burden of senescent cells. That said, there is at present a great deal more interest in the research and development community in producing smal...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs