GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) reliably help people lose weight and control their blood sugar levels. They could also slow biological aging, recent research suggests.
Scientists from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the two largest current manufacturers of GLP-1, revealed some intriguing data last week at an anti-aging conference. Both teams found that their drugs could respectively slow users’ molecular aging clocks by several years compared to a placebo. Although this research is still preliminary, GLP-1s could very well be valuable anti-aging drugs, the researchers say.
“All the clocks tell a consistent story that we’re seeing a reduction in age,” Kevin Duffin, vice president of aging research at Eli Lilly, was quoted as saying at the conference, according to the MIT Technology Review. “It’s not like we’re going to reverse the age of 30 or anything like that, but it’s a significant reduction.”
Change time
The companies presented their data last weekend at the 13th annual Aging Research and Drug Discovery (ARDD) conference.
Novo Nordisk scientists analyzed data from existing clinical trials to determine how their drug, semaglutide, affected the accumulation of biomarkers and other changes associated with aging, measurements commonly known as molecular clocks.
Semaglutide users consistently showed a reduction in these markers compared to people in the placebo group, although there were differences in the magnitude of the reduction depending on the clock used for comparison and the specific organs they examined. While most clocks showed a slowdown in aging of two to three years for the average semaglutide user, for example, a clock based on heart-related proteins showed a slowdown of about 4 years, according to the researchers.
Meanwhile, scientists at Eli Lilly conducted a similar analysis with their blockbuster drug tirzepatide, which combines GLP-1 with another gut hormone called GIP. They studied people’s epigenetics, or the chemical changes to our DNA that help regulate gene activity. As with semaglutide, people taking tirzepatide appeared to age more slowly than people in the control group, based on their epigenetic clock.
Not sure yet
There are, of course, many caveats to these conclusions.
For starters, these studies did not go through the usual peer review process, which is important for checking the quality of any new scientific research. Additionally, both studies were conducted by company scientists and not third-party researchers who might be more impartial.
The science of aging clocks is also in its infancy. Although we can measure and compare age-related changes between people, we don’t know exactly how well improvements in these clocks can correlate with tangible health benefits. This research also only looks at people with obesity or type 2 diabetes, so it’s far from certain that we would see anti-aging effects in people without these issues.
That said, we already know that GLP-1 can reduce the risk of many health problems, including health problems strongly associated with aging, such as heart disease. And recent animal studies have also pointed to a possible increase in longevity, which could even extend beyond the known effects of calorie restriction.
More definitive data on the anti-aging benefits of GLP-1 should become available soon enough. In fact, the federal government is currently funding a trial that will directly study whether GLP-1 and other drugs can extend longevity and healthy aging in people over 60.
It is unlikely that we will ever find the fountain of youth. But these already revolutionary drugs could help fend off the reaper for a while longer.
Gn Health
