Human trials exploring anti-aging medicines

Abstract

Here, we summarize the current knowledge on eight promising drugs and natural compounds that have been tested in the clinic: metformin, NAD⁺ precursors, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, TORC1 inhibitors, spermidine, senolytics, probiotics, and anti-inflammatories. Multiple clinical trials have commenced to evaluate the efficacy of such agents against age-associated diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. There are reasonable expectations that drugs able to decelerate or reverse aging processes will also exert broad disease-preventing or -attenuating effects. Hence, the outcome of past, ongoing, and future disease-specific trials may pave the way to the development of new anti-aging medicines. Drugs approved for specific disease indications may subsequently be repurposed for the treatment of organism-wide aging consequences.

Keywords: age-related disease; autophagy; metformin; nicotinamide mononucleotide/NAD(+)/sirtuins; senescence.