Scientists have found evidence in fruit flies that mifepristone—a drug commonly used to induce abortions—can potentially have anti-aging effects, though further research in humans is required to confirm these findings.
Mifepristone is a synthetic steroid that’s long been used safely in humans for various conditions. While it’s most famously part of the two-drug combination used to perform a medical abortion early in pregnancy, mifepristone has also been used to treat endometritis, uterine fibroids, and high blood sugar in people with Cushing’s disease. Because some research has suggested that the drug can negate the effects of aging in fruit flies (the genus Drosophila), the scientists behind this new study wanted to look a bit deeper into the topic.
The University of Southern California scientists directly compared the effects of mifepristone on female fruit flies with another drug that has shown anti-aging potential, the immunosuppressant rapamycin. They found that both drugs taken separately improved the flies’ longevity, though mifepristone performed a bit better, extending the flies’ lifespan by a median 114% compared to 81% for rapamycin.
However, when both drugs were used together on the flies, the flies actually went on to have a slightly lower lifespan than normal—indicating that the drugs work in a very similar way to boost longevity, the researchers said. The team’s other experiments suggest that both drugs do this by improving the cells’ ability to clean up their damaged or dysfunctional mitochondria, also known as mitophagy. Mitochondria produce most of a cell’s energy, and as animals get older (humans included), their bodies get worse at this cleaning-up process, which then seems to contribute to the many adverse health effects of aging.
“The data suggest that mifepristone and rapamycin act through a common pathway to increase mated female Drosophila life span,” the researchers wrote in their paper, published this month in the journal Fly.
Of course, fruit flies are not humans, so it’s not certain yet whether the same anti-aging effects can translate over to us. Some studies have found evidence in humans that rapamycin can improve markers of aging, though, and the drug is already being tested in clinical trials. Because mifepristone is both relatively cheap and has a long track record of safety, there should also be fewer logistical hurdles for scientists to clear in testing its potential anti-aging effects in people. And the lessons that scientists continue to learn from studying both treatments could even perhaps lead to the discovery and development of other drugs that delay aging by improving the health of our cells’ mitochondria.
Mifepristone and rapamycin aren’t the only older medications being newly studied for their anti-aging effects either. A study just last month found evidence in monkeys that the diabetes and weight loss drug metformin may able to extend the longevity and health of our aging brains and livers.
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