TAME — Targeting Aging with Metformin

node · earth · United States, proposed multi-site

A proposed multi-centre randomised trial, developed by Nir Barzilai and colleagues with the American Federation for Aging Research, designed to test whether metformin delays the onset of a composite of major age-related diseases — cardiovascular events, cancer, dementia — and death in older adults without diabetes. Its scientific rationale is retrospective observational work suggesting that people with type 2 diabetes taking metformin had mortality comparable to or better than matched non-diabetic controls, a finding vulnerable to confounding by indication. Its real significance is regulatory rather than pharmacological: the trial was constructed to persuade the United States Food and Drug Administration to accept a composite multi-morbidity endpoint, because there is no approved indication for ageing and therefore no legal path for a drug that treats it. Funding has been the persistent obstacle; the status of the trial as of 2026 could not be checked in this session and must be established before publication.