A lot of effort and money is being put into longevity, particularly by Silicon Valley biotech companies as they try to crack the code of lasting health. A recent report from business news channel CNBC said that the “delaying death” market is expected to grow to £480 billion ($972 billion).
Some geroprotective (anti-ageing) medicines are potentially not that far away. In the US, the commonly used diabetes drug metformin is being investigated in the TAME trial to assess its potential to delay age-related diseases such as heart disease, cancer and dementia.
Meanwhile, a class of drugs called senolytics is being explored to try to slow down cellular ageing in the body.
Work on artificial organs means that one day, it should be possible to replace worn-out hearts and damaged skin.
And gene editing is already changing the fates of some of those with inherited illness.
In an Auckland trial, seven patients have been treated using a CRISPR-Cas9-based gene-editing therapy, which seems to have provided a permanent cure for their hereditary angioedema, a condition that causes frequent and potentially fatal attacks of swelling.
Scientists here are also working on repurposing a cancer drug. Alpelisib is a PI3 kinase inhibitor that blocks signals that help cancer cells multiply and also mimics the effect of fasting.
When researchers at the University of Auckland treated healthy middle-aged mice with Alpelisib, the rodents lived longer, lost fat tissue and had improved balance, co-ordination and grip strength, although one side effect was slightly weaker bones.
P13 kinase enzymes are particularly important in insulin signalling. Peter Shepherd, a professor in cell signalling and molecular medicine pathology, became interested in their potential for longevity when a former PhD student of his produced mice that were genetically engineered to have less PI3 kinase and found they lived longer.
“We decided to see what happened when we dosed some animals with P13 kinase inhibitors. Sure enough, the ones on the drug lived a lot longer. The mechanisms aren’t totally clear but we think you can block this pathway to achieve better outcomes.
“PI3 kinase is clearly involved in growth because when you give it to mice they stop growing; they particularly stopped growing fat tissue. They have the symptoms of a very mild form of diabetes but they live longer and are healthier.
“I’m certainly not advocating that people take these drugs for the rest of their life to try to live longer. But it does start to show us how our biology can be tweaked to achieve these better outcomes.”
“Longevity doctor” Peter Attia is as interested in tweaking his biology as the next person.
In fact, he self-medicates with rapamycin, an immune-suppressant that has been tested as a longevity drug in animals and does seem to reduce the systemic inflammation associated with ageing
“But the reality is we don’t really have a sense of how these things are going to pan out,” says Attia.
“Why deal in the highly improbable world that you have little or no control over when you can deal in the highly probable world, where you have enormous agency?”
