Study by North Bay lab suggests ibuprofen may prolong human life (w/video)

A common drug that most people have in their medicine cabinet shows promise as a pharmaceutical fountain of youth that could enable humans to live longer and healthier lives, according to a new study by the Buck Institute of Novato.

Ibuprofen, an over-the-counter drug taken to relieve fever, inflammation and pain, boosted the lifespan of yeast, tiny worms and fruit flies by an average of 15 percent, scientists from nonprofit institute said Thursday.

If those results turn out to apply to humans - and there is no evidence yet that they do - the average person could live 12 years longer, said Brian Kennedy, CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and head of the lab that conducted the ibuprofen study. The Buck lab’s findings were published Thursday in the scientific journal PLoS Genetics.

“I’m very excited about it,” Kennedy said in an interview, noting the several other well-known drugs, including aspirin, are also being studied for the potential to extend “healthspan,” the term used for extending life free from serious disease.

“One of them is going to work,” he said. “A lot of people might already be taking life-extending drugs and don’t even know it.”

Drugs with an established safety record in use by humans would not need to undergo the lengthy, expensive process of securing Food and Drug Administration approval that can take eight to 10 years, he said.

But Kennedy said he is not ready to recommend that people start taking ibuprofen to live longer, and a Santa Rosa physician, Jim DeVore, noted that ibuprofen causes gastrointestinal bleeding in some people.

Chong He, a Buck postdoctoral fellow and lead author of the study, said tests with worms showed dramatic evidence they were living better, as well as longer. Worms treated with ibuprofen continued to “thrash much longer than would normally be expected” and also swallowed food faster, she said.

Thrashing and eating heartily are signs of good health in the worms, which are about 0.04 inches long.

Yeast, worms and fruit flies are commonly used in tests for longevity because their normal lifespan is a matter of weeks, He said.

The test animals were given doses of ibuprofen comparable to those used in humans from birth to death with no detrimental side effects, she said.

Kennedy said the findings are “a potential breakthrough,” qualifying that with a scientist’s maxim - “We need to do more work.”

His lab is already testing ibuprofen on mouse tissue, which could “give us more impetus to focus on human trials,” Kennedy said. It might take only a few more years to recommend ibuprofen as a remedy against the diseases of aging, he said.

Aspirin, which is in the same class of drugs as ibuprofen, also shows potential as an anti-aging medicine, along with metformin, an anti-diabetic compound, and rapamycin, used to prevent the rejection of transplanted organs.

Finding ways to keep the nation’s aging population healthy will improve people’s lives and save billions of dollars in health care costs, Kennedy said.

Since its opening in 1999, the Buck Institute has focused on finding ways to forestall the diseases of aging, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and stroke.

DeVore, a family physician and medical director of Annadel Medical Group, said he is skeptical of ibuprofen’s potential for prolonging healthy life. Invented in the 1960s, it is taken by millions of people for relief of pain, fever, headaches, inflammatory diseases such as arthritis and other conditions.

Ibuprofen is “generally safe” for healthy people, DeVore said, but it is harmful to those with stomach ulcers and diabetics with kidney problems, and is associated with increased blood pressure, risk of heart attacks and worsening asthma.

“I’m a pretty big fan of exercise” for staying young, he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.