Small Experiment Appears to Reverse Aging in Humans!

Nature News has this interesting news item on a small experiment in humans to reverse the process of biological aging!

The details:

For one year, nine healthy volunteers took a cocktail of three common drugs — growth hormone and two diabetes medications — and on average shed 2.5 years of their biological ages, measured by analysing marks on a person’s genomes. The participants’ immune systems also showed signs of rejuvenation.

....Checking the effect of the drugs on the participants’ epigenetic clocks was an afterthought. The clinical study had finished when Fahy approached Horvath to conduct an analysis.

Horvath used four different epigenetic clocks to assess each patient’s biological age, and he found significant reversal for each trial participant in all of the tests. “This told me that the biological effect of the treatment was robust,” he says. What’s more, the effect persisted in the six participants who provided a final blood sample six months after stopping the trial, he says.

The abstract from the study:

Epigenetic “clocks” can now surpass chronological age in accuracy for estimating
biological age. Here, we use four such age estimators to show that epigenetic aging
can be reversed in humans. Using a protocol intended to regenerate the thymus, we
observed protective immunological changes, improved risk indices for many age‐re‐
lated diseases, and a mean epigenetic age approximately 1.5 years less than baseline
after 1 year of treatment (−2.5‐year change compared to no treatment at the end of
the study). The rate of epigenetic aging reversal relative to chronological age acceler‐
ated from −1.6 year/year from 0–9 month to −6.5 year/year from 9–12 month. The
GrimAge predictor of human morbidity and mortality showed a 2‐year decrease in
epigenetic vs. chronological age that persisted six months after discontinuing treat‐
ment. This is to our knowledge the first report of an increase, based on an epigenetic
age estimator, in predicted human lifespan by means of a currently accessible aging
intervention.

Cheers,
Colin