There’s not a cure-all drug to help us live longer . Dr. Nir Barzilai, the director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and scientific director at The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), predicts it will take a few decades to see impactful gerotherapeutics—drugs that counter the aging process—for the average person.
The key is discovering safe and effective drugs that target mechanisms, like inflammation and cellular damage, that lead to aging. “The evidence that we’re looking for is from clinical trials, not if it cured an animal and not if people who took it told me that they’re doing better,” he told Fortune at the Longevity Investors Conference last month in Gstaad, Switzerland . He says people must be careful not to give into false, baseless promotions of efficacy .
“Many people are making decisions based on hope rather than on promise. If you hear something really exciting say, ‘Okay, what’s the data? Did you do a clinical study?’” A successful gerotherapy, Barzilai says, will do four things: Target the hallmarks of aging Extend health span by reducing the risk of disease at the end of life Be tested for safety and efficacy on hundreds, possibly thousands of people in clinical trials Influence all-cause mortality Geroscience has a long way to go, but there are four FDA-approved drugs that have shown promise to “target the process of aging,” Barzilai says. While not approved as anti-aging t.
