it is worthy of being called a "miracle drug" and can delay brain aging for several years! evidence of metformin's anti-aging effect in primates appears in today's cell
2024-09-13
한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina
as a basic drug for controlling hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes,metforminmetformin is well-known for its good blood sugar-lowering effect. it has more than 30 years of clinical application experience in china and is currently one of the most widely used oral hypoglycemic drugs in the world.interestingly, metformin can not only lower blood sugar, but in recent years, with the continuous in-depth research, scientists in different fields have found that metformin can also protect cardiovascular system, lose weight, improve blood lipid metabolism, and even reduce the risk of some cancers. because of these functions,metforminit is also called "miracle medicine".in addition, metformin has another potential function that has attracted great attention, which isanti-agingin commonly used experimental animals such as nematodes and mice, metformin has been shown to be associated with longer lifespan. however, there is still a lack of evidence to confirm whether metformin can help humans delay aging.today, in a new research paper published in the journal cell, a research team from the chinese academy of sciences brought an important breakthrough.after eight years of exploration, liu guanghui's team from the institute of zoology, chinese academy of sciences, zhang weiqi's team from the beijing institute of genomics (national center for bioinformatics), and qu jing's team from the institute of zoology worked together tometformin has been shown to significantly slow aging in primates, especially protecting the cognitive function of the brain in elderly animals.。it is worth mentioning that this study foundmetformin's protective effect on primate aging does not rely on its traditional blood sugar and metabolic regulation functions, but rather resets the intrinsic program of cell aging, thereby delaying cell aging。▲metformin resets the multidimensional aging clock in primates (image source: reference [1])this study selectedcynomolgus monkeyas experimental subjects, their physiological structure and function are very similar to those of humans, making them an ideal model for studying aging. scientists have used interdisciplinary techniques such as physiological function assessment, medical imaging, multi-parameter blood testing, multi-tissue pathology analysis, and multi-dimensional life-omics tometformin was used to follow up middle-aged and elderly male cynomolgus monkeys for 40 months.。these male crab-eating macaques were divided equally into two groups. one group took metformin daily at the standard dose for human diabetes treatment from the age of 13 to 16 (equivalent to 40 to 50 years old in humans), while maintaining the same living conditions as the control group of the same age but not taking the medication.after 3.3 years (equivalent to 10 human years),cynomolgus monkeys taking metformin for a long time showed obviousdelayaging effects, including reducing cerebral cortical atrophy and improving cognitive function. in addition, long-term use of metformin can also delay periodontal bone loss and protect multiple tissues and organs such as the liver, heart, lungs, small intestine and skeletal muscle.further analysis revealed that metformin's neuroprotective effects in elderly primates are partly throughantioxidant gene expression network mediated by activated transcription factor nrf2, thereby delaying cell aging. this discovery provides a scientific basis for the aging protection mechanism of metformin and points out the direction for the research and development of aging intervention drugs.▲metformin delays human neuronal aging (image source: provided by the research team)in order to more accurately evaluate the effect of metformin in delaying aging, this study used multidimensional life omics data and machine learning models to develop a primate aging clock that can indicate the biological age of primates, including multi-tissue dna methylation age and transcriptome age, as well as plasma protein and metabolite age. the evaluation results of the multidimensional aging clock showed thatbiological age of multiple tissues and organs in cynomolgus monkeys taking metformin for a long timethe maximum age reduction is 6 years.among them, the frontal lobe area of the brain and the liver have particularly significant effects in delaying aging. high-precision aging clock assessment at the single-cell level shows thatmetformin significantly slowed down the aging process of various nerve cells in the brain and hepatocytes in the liver, which is equivalent towillthe aging rate of these cells was slowed down by 5 to 6 years., which is about 15 to 18 years old in human age。experts in the field pointed out thatthis study shows for the first time that the primate aging clock can be reversed by a single drug, marking an important step for humans in delaying their own aging. the research focus of geriatric medicine is gradually shifting from single chronic disease treatment to systematic intervention in aging. in the future, metformin may become an important tool for delaying human aging and open up new ways to prevent and treat aging-related diseases.
