Nir Barzilai on Metformin and Aging
Nir Barzilai is the Director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a leader in aging research. He is also the lead investigator in the TAME trial. (Targeting Aging with Metformin).
Dr Barzilai is presenting on the TAME trial at the Longevity Leaders Congress, and we asked him how the metformin trial was going. Here is a preview of his thinking
“I’m not curious about the results,” he says. “I’m pretty sure about the results and the reason is because there is preliminary data. Some really good clinical studies were done to show that metformin prevents diabetes versus placebo, that it prevents cardiovascular disease, that it works in non-diabetics, that it decreases mortality, that it decreases cancer, so I’m not curious about that. The reason we’re doing this study is only to get an FDA approval for this concept, that there are drugs that will move a cluster of disease and delay them or prevent them altogether – this is the reason.
We already have proof that we can prolong healthy life. Combining lisinopril or losartan for hypertension, atorvastatin for cholesterol, metformin for diabetes, and aspirin to prevent clot in high-risk diabetes prolongs healthy life by eight years compared with usual care. Bring longer, healthier lives to your community now. Encourage your primary care provider to start a Chronic Cardiometabolic Condition Clinic.