An Accidental Breakthrough: A Drug Designed to Treat Diabetes Appears to Slow Aging and Forestall Death
By mimicking the effects of fasting, SGLT inhibitors seem to broadly counteract age-related diseases and decline.
Dr. James O’Keefe is no pill-pusher.
As director of preventive cardiology at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, O’Keefe has spent much of his career studying how a proper diet, exercise, and other tried-and-true health behaviors protect against the perils of aging.
During our past conversations, O’Keefe, who is also a professor of medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, has bemoaned the sorry state of American healthcare, which he says is structured to treat illness rather than prevent people from getting ill in the first place. “The sicker the population, the better that is for hospitals, drugmakers — the whole system,” he says.
‘I’ve been a physician for 40 years, and I’ve never been so excited about a medication for human health and longevity.’
O’Keefe is an unlikely evangelist for a novel pill-based solution to the problem of age-related disease and infirmity. But he says that his…
