Longevity & AgingMetformin Slows Molecular Aging in Human Cells as Rapamycin Shows Limited Effects
Testing anti-aging drugs in people takes decades, and mice do not always predict human results. Researchers tried a different approach. They kept human skin cells from women aged 53 to 68 alive but not dividing for six months, then tracked their aging with DNA methylation and gene-activity clocks. The cells aged much faster than they would in the body, without becoming senescent, and they changed in ways that matched real aging in people. When the aged cells were converted into neurons, those neurons kept the older biological age. The team then used the system to test two famous longevity drugs. Metformin broadly slowed the aging signals, while rapamycin did little. The model could give researchers a faster, human-based way to screen interventions, though it is early and based on only four donors.
