What Ozempic could do for human lifespan after mice taking it lived 100 days longer

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.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 p...