Original story: UT Health San Antonio Newsroom
Contact: Claire Kowalick, kowalick@uthscsa.edu
SAN ANTONIO (July 28, 2025) — Study finds rapamycin shows greatest longevity effect in 20-year NIH Interventions Testing Program
The first comprehensive review of two decades of research from the National Institute on Aging’s Interventions Testing Program highlights 13 interventions that show promise in preclinical studies for significantly extending lifespan and improving healthspan.
Aging is the major risk factor for most chronic diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease and metabolic disorders. Extending healthspan — how long we live without serious disabilities or disease — is a central goal of modern aging research.
Genesis of Interventions Testing Program
Aging research started to gain momentum after the National Institutes of Health established the National Institute on Aging in 1974, with a dual focus on the biology of aging and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
Then, in 2004, the National Institute on Aging established the Interventions Testing Program (ITP), which proposed a different approach to research — testing orally deliverable compounds that have the potential to delay aging and extend healthspan. Prior to the ITP, there was little scientific evidence that any drugs could influence longevity. The Sam and Ann Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies was selected, along with two other sites, to conduct these studies.
“But that did not mean those drugs did not exist,” said James Nelson, PhD, professor in the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology and the Barshop Institute at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Nelson, who has participated in the Interventions Testing Program from the beginning, said the program’s findings could redefine how scientists understand the biology of aging and our potential to change its trajectory.
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