A small clinical study in California has suggested for the first time that it might be possible to reverse the body’s epigenetic clock, which measures a person’s biological age.
For one year, nine healthy volunteers took a cocktail of three common drugs — growth hormone and two diabetes medications — and on average shed 2.5 years of their biological ages, measured by analysing marks on a person’s genomes. The participants’ immune systems also showed signs of rejuvenation.
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What were the dosage amounts of the hormone and the 2 diabetes meds?
A very small and preliminary trial found that treatment with growth hormone and two diabetes drugs (metformin and DHEA) was able to boost immune cell count, regenerate some of the aging thymus gland, and reverse epigenetic aging by 2.5 years in older men.
White blood cells mature inside the thymus and then become specialized T cells that help the body to fight infections and cancers. However, the thymus gland starts to shrink after puberty and becomes clogged with fat with age.
Some human and animal evidence suggests that growth hormone may regenerate the thymus. However, growth hormone also promotes diabetes so two diabetes drugs were used in the small clinical study.
This was a VERY small trial without any placebo controls so the only conclusion that can be made is that a much larger controlled trial needs to confirm these results.