New Wonder Drug! Niacin?
You're probably as sick of reading about the things that will extend life as I am about writing about them. But the latest wonder drug is niacin , a simple ingredient that's in cereal, only now it's being touted as a life-extending elixir that will increase your lifespan by 10%, at least according to medicaldaily.com. Let's get to the best part of all. The Web site reports that it can even fool your body into thinking it's exercised. "In experiments with roundworms, the nutrient was shown to extend a subject’s lifespan by 10 percent," John Ericson writes. He says the international research team behind the discovery believes that the findings may hold true for us, too, as "the roundworm’s metabolic pathway is similar across many other organisms." The last time I looked, I wasn't a roundworm. But it's not all peaches and cream for niacin. Apparently what the nutrient can, and can't, do has long been the topic of controversy...