NIA Interventions Testing Program: A collaborative approach for investigating interventions to promote healthy aging

The NIA Interventions Testing Program (ITP) investigates the potential of dietary interventions to promote healthy aging and provides preliminary data on cellular mechanisms and pathways that affect aging. Members of the research community propose compounds for study, and lifespan and health studies are performed at three sites to demonstrate the degree of reproducibility. A genetically heterogeneous mouse model is used to reduce the influence of strain-specific characteristics on the outcomes, 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 data on rapamycin, acarbose, 17α-estradiol, nordihydroguaiaretic acid, Protandim, and glycine. This chapter describes the ITP structure, summarizes findings to date and how they have led to additional studies, and discusses the future role of the ITP in promoting research on antiaging interventions.