GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) are reliably helping people lose weight and control their blood sugar. They may also be slowing biological aging, recent research suggests.
Scientists with Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the two biggest current GLP-1 makers, revealed intriguing data this past week at an anti-aging conference. Both teams found that their drugs respectively can slow down the molecular aging clocks of users by several years compared to a placebo. Though this research is still preliminary, GLP-1s could very well be valuable anti-aging drugs, the researchers say.
“All the clocks are telling a consistent story that we’re seeing a reduction in age,” Kevin Duffin, vice president for aging research at Eli Lilly, reportedly said during the conference, according to MIT Technology Review. “It’s not like we’re going to reverse age by 30 years or something, but it’s a significant reduction.”
Changing clocks
The companies presented their data last weekend at the 13th annual Aging Research & Drug Discovery (ARDD) conference.
Novo Nordisk scientists analyzed existing clinical trial data to determine how their drug semaglutide affected the accumulation of biomarkers and other changes associated with aging—measurements that are commonly referred to as molecular clocks.
Semaglutide users consistently showed a reduction in these markers compared to people in the placebo group, they found, though there were differences in the amount of reduction depending on the clock used for comparison and the specific organs they looked at. While most clocks showed a slowdown of two to three years in aging for the average semaglutide user, for instance, one clock based on heart-related proteins showed a slowdown of roughly 4 years, according to the researchers.
Meanwhile, Eli Lilly scientists conducted a similar analysis with their blockbuster drug tirzepatide, which combines GLP-1 with another gut hormone called GIP. They looked at people’s epigenetics—the chemical changes to our DNA that help regulate gene activity. As with semaglutide, people taking tirzepatide seemed to age slower than people in the control group based on their epigenetic clocks.
Not yet certain
There are, of course, plenty of caveats to these findings.
For starters, these studies haven’t gone through the usual peer-review process, which is important for verifying the quality of any new scientific research. Moreover, both studies were conducted by company scientists, not third-party researchers who might be more impartial.
The science of aging clocks is also still in its infancy. Though we might be able to measure and compare age-related changes between people, we’re not entirely clear how well improvements to these clocks can correlate to tangible health benefits. This research is also only looking at people with obesity or type 2 diabetes, so it’s far from certain whether we would see any anti-aging effects in people without these issues.
That said, we already know that GLP-1s can reduce the risk of numerous health conditions, including health problems strongly associated with aging like heart disease. And recent studies in animals have also pointed to a possible longevity boost, one that might even extend beyond the known effects of calorie restriction.
More definitive data on the anti-aging benefits of GLP-1 should be coming down the pipeline soon enough. In fact, the federal government is now funding a trial that will directly study whether GLP-1s and other drugs can extend longevity and healthy aging in people over 60.
It’s unlikely we’ll ever find the fountain of youth. But these already groundbreaking drugs just might help stave off the grim reaper for a good while longer.
