Jocelyn KaiserA dietary supplement bodybuilders use to bulk up may have a more sweeping health benefit: Staving off the ravages of old age.
Mice given the substance—alpha-ketoglutarate(AKG)—were healthier as they aged, and females lived longer than mice not on the supplement.Other compounds, like the antiaging drug rapamycin and the diabetes treatment metformin, have shown similar effects in mouse experiments.
But AKG is naturally made by mice and by our own bodies, and it is already considered safe to consume by regulators.“The big thing about this is that its safety profile is so good,” says University of North Dakota aging researcher Holly Brown-Borg, who was not involved with the study. “It has potential and should be explored further,.