Hypertension drug rilmenidine has been shown to slow aging in worms, which could hypothetically help humans live longer and keep us healthier in our later years.
Previous studies have shown that rilmenidine mimics the effects of calorie restriction at the cellular level. Reducing available energy while maintaining nutrition in the body has been shown to extend lifespan in several animal models.
Whether this translates into human biology or a potential risk to our health is a matter of debate ongoing discussion. Finding ways to achieve the same benefits without the expense of cutting too many calories could lead to new ways to improve health in old age.
In a study published in January, young and old Caenorhabditis elegans Worms treated with a drug normally used to treat high blood pressure lived longer and presented higher measurements of various health markers in the same way scientists had hoped by restricting calories.
“For the first time, we were able to show that rilmenid can increase lifespan in animals” said molecular biogerontologist João Pedro Magalhãesfrom the University of Birmingham, England.
“We now want to investigate whether rilmenidine has other clinical applications.”
The C. elegans The worm is a favorite for research because many of its genes have similarities to their counterparts in our genome. But despite these similarities, it’s still a pretty distant relationship with humans.
Additional tests showed that gene activity associated with calorie restriction could be observed in the kidney and liver tissues of mice treated with rilmenidine. In other words, some of the changes that caloric restriction produces in animals and are thought to have certain health benefits are also seen with hypertension medication that many people already take.
Another discovery was that a biological signaling receptor called niche-1 plays a crucial role in the effectiveness of rilmenide. This particular chemical structure may be a target in future attempts to extend life and slow aging.
“We found that when nish-1 was deleted, the life-prolonging effect of rilmenidine was abolished,” the researchers explained. paper. “Critically, rescue of the nish-1 receptor restored the increase in lifespan after treatment with rilmenidine.”
Low-calorie diets are difficult to follow and cause various side effects such as thinning hair, dizziness, and brittle bones. It’s still early days, but the thinking is that this hypertension drug may provide 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, is already widely available, and its side effects are rare and relatively mild (these include palpitations, insomnia, and somnolence in some cases).
There’s still a long way to go before rilmenidine works as an anti-aging drug for real people, but the early signs from these worm and mouse tests are promising. Now we know more about what rilmenidine can do and how it works.
“With a global aging population, the benefits of delaying aging are even greater” Magalhaes said.
The study was published Aged cell.
An earlier version of this article was published in January 2023.