Fountain-of-Youth Pill

So You Want to Live Forever?

by David Ewing Duncan - Nov 7 2007 -portfolio.com

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals is testing a fountain-of-youth pill in humans. You won't live forever, but it may slow aging and increase lifespan. So far, it's working.

Illustration by: Leif Parsons

When Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon heard rumors of a fountain of youth from native Floridians in 1513, he was desperate enough to find it that he was willing to march in chain mail through fetid swamps infested with mosquitoes, alligators, and hostile locals. He never found it.

Nearly five centuries later, the fabled longevity imbued by Florida's mythic fountains may be here for real. Not spewing from a magical spring with sweet-tasting waters, but in a pill designated SRT501.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals is testing such a pill in humans in a Food and Drug Administration-approved clinical trial. The tests began last spring with 85 volunteers; in August, the company announced that this medication designed to slow aging and bump up lifespan is working.

A caveat: It will take years of tests and trials to know if the drug will ultimately permit people to routinely live to over 100 years old, while fending off diseases of aging ranging from diabetes to cancer.