Medicine’s focus has long been on treating specific diseases. We have radiation treatments to combat cancer tumors, cholesterol-lowering drugs to stave off heart attacks, andinsulin to control diabetes.

But imagine if there were a drug that would slow down the aging process itself, a drug that didn’t just treat a single disease but instead targeted multiple diseases of old age at once? It may sound far-fetched, but that’s precisely what longevity scientists are working hard to produce.

“It’s not just that we’re trying to make people live longer; we’re trying to make people live healthier. This is an exciting time for research,” says Felipe Sierra, director of the Division of Aging Biology at the National Institute on Aging.

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USNews, May 2012