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Research has found that metformin targets the chemicals produced by age-related senescent cells—normal cells that stop dividing and produce toxic substances damaging to the cells around them, said James Kirkland, director of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and part of the TAME planning team. Senescent cells usually develop as people age or at sites of age-related chronic diseases, such as the brain in Alzheimer’s patients or around the plaques that lead to heart attacks and strokes, he said. It isn’t proven if senescent cells actually cause the disease.

Metformin appears also to slow the development of age-related symptoms by increasing the enzyme AMP kinase, which normally declines with age, and decreasing the protein mTOR, which helps to regulate cell growth.

Scientists’ New Goal: Growing Old Without Disease