New 'miracle' drug could prolong life and prevent age-associated diseases, scientists claim

A diabetes drug is set to be tested on humans next year in trials that could increase lifespans by almost half, enabling people to live until 120 years of age.

Metformin has already been proven to extend the life of animals and researchers now hope the drug can stave off diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

The Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. have given permission for researchers to proceed with a £3 million trial to discover whether the same effects can be replicated in humans.

Professor Lithgow, ageing expert at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California, believes that young people could be given a vaccine in the future to slow down ageing.

He said: “If you target an ageing process and you slow down ageing then you slow down all the diseases and pathology of ageing as well. That’s revolutionary. That’s never happened before.

“But there is every reason to believe it’s possible. The future is taking the biology that we’ve now developed and applying it to humans.

“If we were to cure all cancers it would only raise life-expectancy by around three years, because something else is coming behind the cancer, but if we could slow down the ageing process you could dramatically improve how long people can live.

“We know that it is possible for handfuls of people to live to very old age and still be physically and socially active, so clearly they carry some kind of protection in their bodies. They are essentially not ageing as quickly. If we can harness that, then everyone can achieve those lifespans.”

If the tests are successful, researchers believe a person in their 70s could be as biologically healthy as a 50-year-old.

Mr Lithgow, added: “I have been doing research into ageing for 25 years and the idea that we would be talking about a clinical trial in humans for an anti-ageing drug would have been thought inconceivable.

“But there is every reason to believe it’s possible. The future is taking the biology that we’ve now developed and applying it to humans.”

Metformin increases oxygen molecules in the body’s cells and is currently the mostly common used treatment for diabetes treatment. The drug costs individuals ten pence per day.

Research carried out by experts at Cardiff University in 2014 suggested that those living with diabetes and were administered the drug, lived longer than people without the condition.