A team of researchers announces that they have been able to almost double the lifespan of fruit flies by combining three drugs already used in humans. A study that could lead to new approaches to treat age-related diseases.
Life expectancy in France has risen from 25 years in 1740 to more than 80 years today (79.5 years for men and 85.4 years for women). women). We live longer thanks to better food and better health care, among other things. But who says "longer life" also means more age-related diseases. Like arthritis, cardiovascular disease, cancer or Alzheimer's disease. The idea would be to be able to continue to live longer, without suffering from the diseases that go with it.
To do this, researchers must study the complex process of aging. One way to do this is to look at Drosophila flies, whose life cycle is extremely short:around thirty days. For this new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers at the University College of London had the idea of combining three drugs already used in humans.
These three treatments — lithium, a mood stabilizer, a cancer drug called trametinib, and an immune regulator called rapamycin — each target different cellular processes. Individually, we know that they increase the lifespan of fruit flies by an average of 11%. But by combining them, the researchers were able to extend the insects' lifespan by 48% .
So the combination of these drugs appears to be exceeds the sum of its components. These treatments also seem to complement each other, by annihilating their side effects respective. For example, when taken on its own, rapamycin may have an effect on fat metabolism. But these effects disappear when combined with lithium.
This is just the first step . The researchers now plan to continue this research on mice. Before considering the first clinical trials. The idea is not to "cheat death" , note the researchers, but to “find ways to improve the health of older adults” .
Note that this is not the first time that researchers have managed to "delay" the death of small creatures so far. Last year, a team of researchers explained that they had almost doubled the lifespan of small worms Caenorhabditis elegans , again thanks to a combination of three drugs. Interestingly, rapamycin was also used in this study.
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