Results from Human Clinical Trials Do Not Support Metformin as a Longevity Drug

The SENS Research Foundation staff have carried out the public service of extensively discussing and dismantling the evidence commonly cited in support of metformin as a way to modestly slow aging, showing that said evidence is problematic, to say the least. Metformin might make life modestly better for diabetics, but it doesn't slow aging. This view of the human data matches the poor quality of the animal model data, in which metformin makes a poor showing in comparison to the robust data for a modest slowing of aging that is produced by the use of, say, mTOR inhibitors, or the practice of calorie restriction. Regardless of what you, I, the SENS Research Foundation staff, or just about anyone else thinks of the merits of metformin and the problems with human studies of metformin, the TAME trial to assess the use of metformin to treat aging will forge ahead. Regardless of whether it succeeds or (as I expect) fails, the point of the TAME trial is to pave the way, to have browbeaten the FDA into accepting a trial design in which the target is aging, not any specific disease of aging. That has essentially taken place. The next well-funded group will try that same trial design with mTOR inhibitors, or plasma dilution, or senolytics, or small molecule reprogramming agents. Sooner or later, it will become commonplace to run trials that target aging, rather than development programs sidetracking into the treatment of specific age-related disease while hoping for off-label use...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs