Health and Pro-Longevity Interventions

A century-long rise in life expectancy in all developed countries across the globe is, unfortunately, not accompanied by the same extension of human healthspan. This is because the aging process per se is the main risk factor for most chronic diseases affecting the elderly. Therefore, slowing down the aging rate is believed to be more effective in delaying aging-associated chronic disorders than combating them one by one, which is the conventional approach in a current disease-based paradigm. Now, different drugs designed to treat specific pathological conditions and shown to have pro-longevity properties in experimental models are being increasingly developed and investigated in pre-clinical and clinical trials to determine whether they have potential for human healthspan extension as well. The aim of this chapter is to discuss whether the conventionally used drugs can be repurposed to target the aging process per se. The advances and challenges in this emerging research field are summarized and future research directions are discussed.