Common blood pressure drug appears to slow aging in animals

Karachi: A common blood pressure drug was tested on certain types of worms, and it theoretically increased the worms’ lifespan and slowed the aging process.

Medicines of the rilmanidine group are usually prescribed to control blood pressure. Experts fed its reduced diet to a type of catfish, C. elegans, and it began to live longer than its age and the signs of aging also slowed down.

At the cellular level, rilmanidine has been shown to have the same effects as calorie restriction. Previously, we have tested on many animals that when the energy component (eg calories or heat) in their body is reduced, the lifespan is increased or the aging is slowed down.

But will this formula work on humans? Only time will tell, but there are two groups of experts on this, one believes that eating less calories increases age and delays aging. Another group insists that it can have negative physical effects.

But the thing to remember here is that the quechua, C. elegans, is used for human research, just like the fruit fly, Drosophila. Research done on them in the past has proved useful for humans. But more research is needed for this. The reason is that both insects share many genes with humans.

A team of international experts was involved in these experiments. They took old and young ‘Cenorhabditis elegans’ worms and tested them with the drug rilmanidine, which lowers blood pressure. They measured chemicals in the insects’ bodies that indicate aging.

It was found that the rate of aging slowed down and also increased in the insects that were given this drug. The research has been published in the research journal Aging.