The ‘Behind the Headlines’ service from NHS Choices has featured a quality assessment of press reports that scientists may have “found a cure for ageing” [Daily Mirror]. The Assessment notes that the press reports are based on a small, laboratory based study which investigated the use of n-acetylcysteine (NAC) in an extremely rare form of a genetic condition called progeria. The condition causes children’s bodies to rapidly age and leads to a number of physical health problems, limiting their lifespan to an average of around 13 years.

The Assessment notes: “The findings of this study are at a very early stage and suggest some potential ways to help people with rare but devastating forms of progeria. However, it is too great a leap too suggest that the research provides a “cure for ageing”, as some fanciful reports have done.”

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