Association between prescription drugs and all-cause mortality risk in the UK population.
Abstract
Although most drugs currently approved are meant to treat specific diseases or symptoms, it has been hypothesized that some might bear a beneficial effect on lifespan in healthy older individuals, outside of their specific disease indication. Such drugs include, among others, metformin, SGLT2 inhibitors and rapamycin. Since 2006, the UK biobank has recorded prescription medication and mortality data for over 500'000 participants, aged between 40 and 70 years old. In this work, we examined the impact of the top 406 prescribed medications on overall mortality rates within the general population of the UK. As expected, most drugs were linked to a shorter lifespan, likely due to the life-limiting nature of the diseases they are prescribed to treat. Importantly, a few drugs were associated with increased lifespans, including notably Sildenafil, Atorvastatin, Naproxen and Estradiol. These retrospective results warrant further investigation in randomized controlled trials.
The following analysis is generated by AI and may contain errors. It is separate from the authors’ abstract and is not peer review.
Research summary
The paper investigates the association between prescription drugs and all-cause mortality, which is pertinent to longevity research as it explores potential lifespan-extending effects of certain medications. However, the findings are largely retrospective and suggest a need for further randomized controlled trials, indicating that while the research is solid, its immediate impact on the field of longevity is limited. The identification of specific drugs associated with increased lifespans is noteworthy, but the overall contribution remains incremental rather than groundbreaking.
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