Repeating the Point that Metformin Just Doesn ' t Look Good in Animal Studies

Based on studies conducted in mice, metformin is a terrible candidate drug for the treatment of aging. It may well benefit metabolically abnormal individuals, such as diabetics, but results for aged, metabolically normal mice are all over the map. Further, the gold standard, rigorous Interventions Testing Program found no benefit in their assessment. If the goal is to modestly slow aging, then rapamycin is way and far better: robust, replicated results on health and life span in animal studies. But the goal should not be to modestly slow aging! It should be to produce rejuvenation! The sizable fraction of academia and industry that is focused on altering metabolism to provoke greater stress responses and modestly slow aging will, unfortunately, most likely do little to reduce the suffering and death of old age. The animal study most often cited as evidence that metformin slows aging in lab mice is no such evidence at all. The investigators tested two doses of metformin in healthy, wild-type, nonobese mice. At the lower of the two tested doses, metformin increased the animals' mean survival by a paltry 4-6%, and had no effect on maximum lifespan, meaning that the drug prevented a small number of deaths during and before middle age, but had no effect on aging. And when the mice were given the higher dose of metformin, it actually shortened the animals' lives! The best animal study to test metformin as a potential anti-aging drug was conducted as part of the Nati...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs