Old drug slows cellular clock, treats multiple neurodegenerative diseases

This is intriguing news. From the article:

Recent animal studies have shown that clioquinol - an 80-year old drug once used to treat diarrhea and other gastrointestinal disorders - can reverse the progression of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases. [...] Researchers at McGill University have discovered a dramatic possible new answer: According to Dr. Siegfried Hekimi and colleagues at McGill's Department of Biology, clioquinol acts directly on a protein called CLK-1, often informally called "clock-1," and might slow down the aging process. [...]

"Because clock-1 affects longevity in invertebrates and mice, and because we're talking about three age-dependent neurodegenerative diseases, we hypothesize that clioquinol affects them by slowing down the rate of aging." [...]

"The danger is that you can buy a kilogram of this compound at a chemical wholesaler, but we don't want people to start experimenting on themselves. Clioquinol can be a very toxic substance if abused