A pill that will help you live to 100 and beyond may be available within two years, The Sun reported Wednesday.
The drugs — a spin-off from research into age-related illnesses such as Alzheimer's — are already being developed, according to an American professor.
"Pharmaceutical companies are developing these drugs now," professor Nir Barzilai, one of the world's leading experts on aging, told fellow scientists at a London conference. "They will probably be available for testing from 2012."
The breakthrough follows intensive research into what makes cells die — and why some people dodge major illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and dementia.
The New York professor's own team at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine has pinpointed genetic variants that let people live to a "ripe old age."
Those with anti-aging genes tend not to get seriously ill towards the end of their lives — but die suddenly.
"People who die between 70 and 80 are sick in the last few years of their life. Centenarians are dying healthy," Barzilai said.
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