Latest news with #JoãoPedroMagalhães
Arab Times
2 days ago
- Health
- Arab Times
Anti-aging breakthrough? Old blood pressure drug offers new hope for longer, healthier lives
LONDON, June 14: As people continue to outlive their parents and grandparents, those added years often bring a burden of chronic illnesses. Now, scientists are exploring ways to ensure those later decades feel less like overtime and more like prime time—by delaying the biological decline that typically accelerates after age 65. One promising avenue in longevity research is the search for drugs that mimic the benefits of caloric restriction, a method long known to extend lifespan in mice, worms, and monkeys. Though effective, the regimen — which requires reducing calorie intake by 20 to 40 percent over years — is difficult to sustain and can cause adverse effects like dizziness, brittle bones, and hair loss. Instead, researchers are seeking "caloric-restriction mimetics" (CRMs), drugs that could provide similar anti-aging effects without forcing people to drastically cut their food intake. The idea is to activate the same metabolic pathways that animals use during times of food scarcity, prompting cells to clean up damaged proteins, improve energy use, and strengthen their defenses against stress. A standout candidate in this emerging field is rilmenidine, a drug used for over 30 years to treat high blood pressure. Identified by machine-learning models screening for CRMs, the compound drew attention from a research team led by molecular biogerontologist Dr. João Pedro Magalhães at the University of Birmingham. 'For the first time, we have been able to show in animals that rilmenidine can increase lifespan,' Magalhães said. Experiments in the tiny soil worm Caenorhabditis elegans showed that the drug extended life even when administered later in life—an encouraging sign that humans might not need to begin treatment in middle age. The study revealed that rilmenidine binds to imidazoline receptors on cell membranes, particularly one called nish-1. When the receptor was removed, the life-extending effects disappeared, but reintroducing it restored the benefits. Treated worms also displayed increased autophagy—the cell's waste management system—and were better able to withstand heat stress. Importantly, the drug did not affect the worms' development or fertility, suggesting it targeted aging-specific pathways. Given C. elegans shares many genes with humans, the team extended their research to mice. The animals exhibited gene-expression changes in liver and kidney tissues that closely resembled those seen in classic caloric restriction. Metabolic biomarkers also shifted toward more youthful levels, bolstering hopes that the drug engages conserved survival mechanisms across species. Since rilmenidine is already approved for human use and has a solid safety profile—its side effects are rare and include mild symptoms like palpitations, drowsiness, or insomnia—it may offer a shortcut to early-stage human trials. These trials could focus on biological indicators of aging, such as inflammation, insulin sensitivity, and muscle strength, before proceeding to long-term health outcomes. 'This is a very practical compound. It's taken orally and doesn't require a complex regimen,' said Dr. Magalhães. 'With a global aging population, the benefits of delaying aging—even slightly—are immense.' Public health experts agree that shaving just a few years off late-life disability could dramatically reduce healthcare costs and improve quality of life for millions. Yet the concept of targeting aging itself, rather than individual diseases, remains a relatively new frontier. Regulatory agencies will eventually need new frameworks to evaluate drugs like rilmenidine, which aim to delay aging rather than treat a specific illness. Ethical questions also loom around fair access and societal impact. Still, many researchers believe the momentum is growing. 'If rilmenidine or similar drugs continue to prove safe and effective,' said Magalhães, 'we may soon see a future where living healthy into your eighties and beyond becomes less of a genetic fluke and more a product of everyday science.'
Yahoo
09-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
This Common Blood Pressure Drug Extends Lifespan And Slows Aging in Animals
The hypertension drug rilmenidine has been shown to slow down aging in worms, an effect that in humans could hypothetically help us live longer and keep us healthier in our latter years. Previous research has shown rilmenidine mimics the effects of caloric restriction on a cellular level. Reducing available energy while maintaining nutrition within the body has been shown to extend lifespans in several animal models. Whether this translates to human biology, or is a potential risk to our health, is a topic of ongoing debate. Finding ways to achieve the same benefits without the costs of extreme calorie cutting could lead to new ways to improve health in old age. In a study published in 2023, young and old Caenorhabditis elegans worms treated with the drug – which is normally used to treat high blood pressure – lived longer and presented higher measures in a variety of health markers in the same way as restricting calories, as the scientists had hoped. "For the first time, we have been able to show in animals that rilmenidine can increase lifespan," said molecular biogerontologist João Pedro Magalhães, from the University of Birmingham in the UK. "We are now keen to explore if rilmenidine may have other clinical applications." The C. elegans worm is a favorite for studies, because many of its genes have similarities to counterparts in our genome. Yet in spite of these similarities, it is still a rather distant relation to humans. Further tests showed that gene activity associated with caloric restriction could be seen in the kidney and liver tissues of mice treated with rilmenidine. In other words, some of the changes that caloric restriction gives in animals and thought to confer certain health benefits also appear with a hypertension drug that many people already take. Another discovery was that a biological signaling receptor called nish-1 was crucial in the effectiveness of rilmenidine. This particular chemical structure could be targeted in future attempts to improve lifespan and slow down aging. "We found that the lifespan-extending effects of rilmenidine were abolished when nish-1 was deleted," the researchers explained in their paper. "Critically, rescuing the nish-1 receptor reinstated the increase in lifespan upon treatment with rilmenidine." Low-calorie diets are hard to follow and come with a variety of side effects, such as hair thinning, dizziness, and brittle bones. It's early days still, but the thinking is that this hypertension drug could confer the same benefits as a low-calorie diet while being easier on the body. What makes rilmenidine a promising candidate as an anti-aging drug is that it can be taken orally, it's already widely prescribed, and its side effects are rare and relatively mild (they include palpitations, insomnia, and drowsiness in a few cases). There's a long way to go yet in figuring out if rilmenidine would work as an anti-aging drug for actual humans, but the early signs in these worm and mice tests are promising. We now know much more about what rilmenidine can do, and how it operates. "With a global aging population, the benefits of delaying aging, even if slightly, are immense," said Magalhães. The research was published in Aging Cell. An earlier version of this article was published in January 2023. Having Kids Linked to Younger Looking Brains Later in Life, Study Finds Wholemeal or Wholegrain? An Expert Explains How to Choose Your Bread. Psilocybin Put Rat Brains 'Back Together' After Mild Head Trauma
