Hormones May Hold Clues to Healthy Aging

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But whether capromorelin will be available commercially anytime soon is problematic, Merriam said.

"It's very difficult to get a drug for normal aging on the market, because the FDA does not consider aging to be a disease and therefore sets the bar very high," he said. "I would not consider these results conclusive. Drugs in this category may have hope for improving physical function and thereby hopefully prolonging older people's ability to live independently."

One expert is cautious about supplementing hormone levels to fight aging, because scientists simply doesn't yet understand the consequences of long-term use of these agents.

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"The problems with all the hormones is that they have other effects," said Rafael de Cabo, an investigator at the Laboratory of Experimental Gerontology, part of the U.S. National Institute on Aging.

There can be many possible unintended effects, de Cabo said. "Before you can even think of giving these to humans, you have to be sure it is safe and doesn't have other implications," he said.

"Any time you try to tweak the neuroendocrine system, all the knobs are interconnected, so if you move one up or down there is an immediate response from the rest of them," de Cabo said. "It is not a golden bullet or an easy shot to fix the metabolism by a single compound."

More information

For more on healthy aging, head to the U.S. National Institute on Aging (nihseniorhealth.gov ).

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