Medicine's focus has long been on treating specific diseases. We have radiation treatments to combat cancer tumors, cholesterol-lowering drugs to stave off heart attacks, and insulin to control diabetes… In a discovery that Science magazine hailed as one of the top 10 breakthroughs of 2011, researchers from the Mayo Clinic published results showing they could markedly delay the onset of age-related diseases in mice by killing off the rodents' senescent cells…"We're not there yet, but we're getting closer to doing clinical trials on people," says James Kirkland, director of the Mayo Clinic's Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging and one of the scientists involved in the study. "There's so much promise."

US News & World Report by Adam Voiland

Tags: anti-aging pill, Dr. James Kirkland, Research, Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging, U.S. News & World Report