Blog – Page 5,402

They boost each other and block side effects? (In mice)

Rapamycin and metformin are viewed by many as the two most promising anti-aging drugs, but now scientists have found that these drugs can work hand in hand and show combined benefits, boosting each other’s effectiveness and blocking side effects — or at least that’s what we’ve seen in mice.

When tested by the Intervention Testing Program metformin failed to significantly increase lifespan in mice. However, in combination with rapamycin, it worked synergistically, leading to a drastic increase in median and maximal lifespan.

In this new study, the researchers put the “combination hypothesis” to the test again, using male mice of a common pre-diabetes model. The mice received either rapamycin, metformin, or a combination from 12 to 30 weeks of age.

Being pre-diabetic, these mice usually gain a lot of weight with age. Metformin treatment did not alleviate this trend, but both the rapamycin and combination treatments allowed the mice to maintain normal weight until the end of the experiment.