Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk presented data at the Aging Research & Drug Discovery conference indicating that their GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are linked to slower biological aging. The companies used molecular aging clocks, which estimate a person's biological age from DNA changes or protein levels. Novo's study of more than 10,000 people found that the drugs slowed aging clocks across tissues, with one heart-protein clock showing as much as a four-year reduction. Lilly's smaller study, using epigenetic clocks, also found that molecular time moved more slowly for people on its drug tirzepatide.
Novo's Nikolaj Roed said the overall difference was around two to three years, and Steve Horvath, a UCLA professor who helped invent aging clocks, called that a strong effect. Horvath said the data could provide evidence that GLP-1 drugs are geroprotectors, medications that slow or possibly reverse biological aging. However, Harvard biologist Vadim Gladyshev, who assisted Novo with its measurements, cautioned that the drugs appear to be anti-aging in an unhealthy population, but that no one knows whether they would have the same effect in healthy people.
The findings are a boost for the field of aging clocks, which have long needed validation as real biomarkers. But researchers also noted that the drugs have side effects, including muscle loss, and Horvath said he is not ready to take them himself. This article is based on a single source, so there are no independent reports to compare; within the source, scientists differ mainly on whether the anti-aging effect extends beyond overweight or diabetic patients.