Over the years, the Trends editors have kept you up-to-date on promising medical research aimed at extending and improving human life.  Obviously, these new and emerging technologies could dramatically improve the quality and quantity of life we enjoy as individuals.  But they are even more important to the future of our economy because of their implications for increasing our economic contributions and decreasing the cost of our health care.  Consequently, we’re pleased to bring to your attention new research results from the National Institute of Aging Interventions Testing Program. As we’ll explain, rapamycin, an existing, commercially available medication, seems poised to become the first effective anti-aging drug available for humans. 

Rapamycin is a natural compound that was discovered in the soil of the Easter Islands about 40 years ago.  The compound is already FDA-approved for suppressing immune responses in patients who have received organ transplants.  And, as such, it has already undergone lengthy clinical trials for safety.

But, while its current applications are interesting, rapamycin’s unprecedented potential for slowing the aging process is generating widespread excitement.  As explained recently in the journal Nature,¹ rapamycin extended the lives of mice who took the drug from birth to death, by 9 to 13 percent.  For a person expected to live to the age of 80, that’s an extra 10 years of life. 

But much more exciting for most of the Trends audience is what happened when trials began when the mice were well into middle age, specifically the equivalent of 60 years old in human terms.  The late start actually boosted the effectiveness of the drug so that the mice enjoyed a lifespan between 28 and 38 percent longer than the control group. 

For a person expected to live to the age of 80, 38 percent translates to more than 30 extra years of life, theoretically raising the human lifespan to 110 years.  This is a greater boost to longevity than scientists expect to provide if they someday find cures for both heart disease and cancer.

Researchers from three institutions — the University of Texas Health Science Center, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine...