Diabetes drug prolonged lifespan in glucose-fed worms
Dapagliflozin also reduced glucose transport in laboratory experiments with worms that lack an equivalent of the drug’s usual target.
Our read
Interventions- Studied:
- Experiments in glucose-fed Caenorhabditis elegans worms, against glucose-only-treated worms
- What changed:
- Glucose-fed worms lived longer with dapagliflozin than with glucose alone
- The catch:
- The abstract does not report the size of the lifespan increase
- In the record:
- One of 444 papers on dapagliflozin on record: 182 with results in people, 75 in animals.
- Why it’s aging research:
- It studies an intervention with evidence of extending healthy life.
Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
In laboratory experiments, glucose-fed Caenorhabditis elegans worms lived longer after receiving dapagliflozin, a diabetes drug. These worms lack an equivalent of sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2), the protein the drug targets to reduce how much glucose the kidneys take back into the blood.
Dapagliflozin also reduced uptake of a fluorescent glucose substitute, which the researchers used to measure glucose transport in living worms. Reducing the activity of smvt-1, a gene for a protein that transports vitamins, abolished this effect on glucose transport. The authors identified this vitamin transporter as a relevant drug target in worms. Their findings suggested that dapagliflozin affects glucose transport and longevity through actions that do not depend on SGLT2.
Why it matters
For longevity research, this work addresses whether a drug’s lifespan effects require the same target as its established blood-sugar-lowering action.
Caveats
The lifespan result came from glucose-fed worms and does not establish a human longevity benefit. The abstract does not report the size of the lifespan increase or the drug dose.
The paper
Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education
Endokrynologia Polska, Jun 1, 2026, Open access
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