Common blood pressure drug slows aging and boosts lifespan, even in older animals

Published on Earth.com by Eric Ralls.

Many people today outlive their parents and grandparents, yet the extra years often bring a tangle of chronic illnesses. Scientists want those later decades to feel less like overtime and more like prime time, so they are probing ways to postpone the biological slide that usually accelerates after age 65.

One avenue getting serious attention swaps crash diets for chemistry.

Computational screening tools now search drug libraries for compounds that make human cells mimic the gene-expression profile seen under calorie shortfall.

The approach is faster than testing each molecule in live animals first and often highlights drugs already approved for other conditions, cutting years off the path to clinical trials.

Rilmenidine – common pill fights aging

One surprising hit from these searches is rilmenidine, a hypertension medicine taken by mouth for three decades.

After machine-learning models flagged it, a team led by molecular biogerontologist João Pedro Magalhães at the University of Birmingham UK put it to the test in Caenorhabditis elegans, a small soil worm favored by aging researchers.

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If rilmenidine or similar compounds keep proving safe and effective, the next generation of seniors may find that staying healthy deep into their eighties feels less like luck and more like routine science.

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Source: https://www.earth.com/news/common-blood-pressure-drug-rilmenidine-slows-aging-extends-lifespan-in-older-animals/

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