Researcher thinks certain drugs might slow aging

Can people reach 100 if they don't have the genes?

Science doesn't know yet, but Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, thinks certain drugs might slow aging. He hopes to conduct a clinical trial of the diabetes drug metformin, which appears to act on certain molecular pathways involved in aging.

Meanwhile, Anne Newman, director of the Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Pittsburgh, thinks just leading a healthy life might be enough to avert decline.

"We don't know what the human potential could be if you gave someone the perfect environment from conception, but I do believe that people with healthy lifestyles from before they were born could live to 100, even if there is no evidence in the family," she says.