A New Hope: Thymus Regeneration

For a silver fox like 007, a shaken dry martini is a thing of leisure, but a new cocktail containing prescription drugs might just be what the aging need.

This study by Greg Fahy and Bobby Brooke found using a certain cocktail of drugs you can reverse the blood’s epigenetic age by two years. Although the study’s sample size was small, it showed biological impact the drugs had working in unison. It is unknown if the individual drugs have any effect on epigenetic age.

Some of the pharmaceuticals in this brew are growth hormones such as Dehydroepiandrosterone or DHEA a steroid which occurs naturally in the human brain, adrenaline glands and gonads as well as diabetes medication such as Metformin. When the drugs combine they regenerate the thymus, a primary lymphoid organ of the immune system.

Methylation is the aging process in effect on our DNA molecules. Methyl will decrease over time in DNA molecules which means measuring this can tell you the epigenetic clock of a living being. Epigenetic age is just a fancy science way of saying the age based on biomarkers. A biomarker is a measurable indicator of a biological condition or life. 

“We did not see any effect in an observational study where we compared current Metformin users to future users,” said Steve Horvath, professor of human genetics and biostatistics at the University of California, Los Angeles. “I strongly recommend that one evaluate the effect of metformin on epigenetic clocks.”

This study had no placebo control arm. They collected the samples before and after the treatment allowing the subjects to act as their own control arm.

Horvath first heard about Fahy and Brooke’s work at an AGE conference in June, 2016. Horvath gave a lecture there and Fahy was a regular attendee as part of the American Aging Association. Fahy mentioned to Horvath the thymus regeneration study and they decided to keep in touch.

“For the purpose of this study the most important epigenetic clock is GrimAge,” said Horvath.

GrimAge, named after the Grim Reaper, is a blood-based biomarker which allows scientists to observe methylation in the molecule.

Horvath intends to start a phase two clinical trial, using a placebo arm and 100 participants.

“It would be negligent not to follow up on these results,” said Horvath.

The study resulted in seven out of nine participants showing reduced fat in the thymus and a boosted immune system.

Although Steve has done a vast number of studies on epigenetic aging, after measuring epigenetic age at one time point, he has never observed the equivalent of a 1.5 year decrease in epigenetic age a year later just by chance, rather than the expected 1 year increase.