Efforts to slow the march of old age with a pill have been dealt a blow. Drugs that might treat disease by tampering with the biology of ageing are being tested, but new research questions whether they work as thought.

The compounds include resveratrol, a much-touted component of red wine that is thought to prevent the cellular damage that underlies ageing. Also under test are several chemicals intended to mimic resveratrol's effects by activating SIRT1, a protein implicated in ageing. Experiments have led some to conclude that these drugs ramp up the protein's activity, but the new studies suggest that those experiments suffered from errors.

"I think it's a setback because there's been a lot of optimism about these resveratrol-like compounds," says Matt Kaeberlein, a biochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in either study and has no link with any company developing anti-ageing drugs.

Sirtris, a drug development firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is hoping these and similar drugs will treat age-related disorders such as type 2 diabetes and cancer, and has numerous clinical trials already under way. The company was bought by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for $720 million in 2008.

Read the whole article at New Scientist