NIA Interventions Testing Program: A Collaborative Approach for Investigating Interventions to Promote Healthy Aging

The NIA Interventions Testing Program (ITP) was developed to investigate the potential of dietary interventions to promote healthy aging and to provide preliminary data on cellular mechanisms and pathways that affect aging. Compounds for study are proposed by members of the research community, and lifespan and healthspan studies are performed at three sites to provide a high degree of reproducibility. A genetically heterogeneous mouse model is used to reduce the influence of strain-specific characteristics on the outcome, and sufficient mice are used to detect a 10% change in mean lifespan with 80% power if at least two sites contribute data. There have been several positive findings that have prompted additional studies within the ITP and from the broader research community, including rapamycin, acarbose, 17α-estradiol, and nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA). This chapter describes the ITP structure, presents the findings to date and how they have led to additional studies, and discusses the future role of the ITP in promoting research on anti-aging interventions.