Could a weight loss shot be a fountain of youth?
A new study could point to major longevity benefits for humans who take GLP-1s.
Researchers compared mice who took the drug in Ozempic and Wegovy to mice who didn’t — and found improvement across their blood, appearance and behavior.
Most importantly? The skinny jab mice lived months longer.
The new study found that mice that took semaglutide lived around 100 days longer than mice who didn’t take it. That’s a 12% increase in lifespan.
If you take the average US lifespan of 79 years, that would look like 9.5 extra years of life in humans. But authors emphasize: More research is needed to confirm how this effect might extend to us.
“We are very excited by this new study, because it could potentially broaden the application of GLP-1 medicines to healthy aging individuals to extend lifespan and healthspan,” said author Danica Chen, a professor of metabolic biology and nutrition at UC Berkeley.
Experts have known that simply cutting back on calories extends your life — but this new research suggests the weight loss drug might actually do more for keeping your body young than just eating less.
Reducing hallmarks of aging
You may have heard about the “hallmarks of aging.” Biohackers and geneticists like to talk about the 12 molecular and biological changes in the body that explain how and why our bodies age.
They include chronic inflammation, a build up of damaged DNA, cells that stop dividing, and mitochondria that stop making enough energy and leak harmful chemicals.
In this new paper, researchers from Berkeley found that semaglutide — which is sold as Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus — helped reduce these hallmarks of aging.
Overall, researchers also observed better muscle and cognitive function in mice who took the drug.
This all leads to a longer lifespan. Mice on the drug until the end of their life lived longer — a median of 834 days, compared to the 742 days the control lived.
“Most chronic diseases are deeply rooted in the aging process. If GLP-1 agonists do indeed slow it down, then a wide range of clinical benefits is exactly what you’d expect to see,” said Rafael de Cabo, a senior investigator at the NIH’s National Institute on Aging (NIA), and author of a commentary on the new study.
Advancing age is the greatest risk factor in a number of chronic conditions, from cancer, to Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and diabetes.
More than just eating less
In a second experiment, researchers pitted mice on the drug against mice who simply ate less calories.
The two groups performed very similarly across a number of metrics: weight and fat loss, physical activity, coordination, muscle function, and exercise capacity.
However, mice on the drug beat calorie-restriction only in three main ways: mice were more willing to explore (which normally declines in age), mice better remembered where things were (in a maze), and their bodies were better able to regulate blood sugar.
“These differences point to the possibility that GLP-1 drugs tap into a biological pathway independent of calorie restriction,” said Chen. “Uncovering this potential route and the benefits that may specifically stem from it is an important direction for future research into the development of longevity-enhancing interventions.”
While it’s important to remember this is still just research in mice, there are some parallels to humans. How the mice performed on spacial memory tests could point to better cognition in humans as they age. Previous research does show GLP-1s help people with type 2 diabetes decline slower cognitively.
And in humans, aging makes it harder for the body to regulate blood sugar — increasing risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. This has been linked to risks to vital blood vessels in the brain and heart. This study points to the possibility GLP-1s could help manage blood sugar and avoid these risks in humans.
