While trying to regenerate the thymus gland, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers might have found a solution to not only slowing down the ageing problem but actually reversing it, a new study claims.

Scientists volunteers in a California study were given a cocktail of three common drugs for one year- a growth hormone and two diabetes medications in order to stimulate the regeneration of thymus gland. However, according to a study published in Nature journal, researchers found that participants had lost an average of 2.5 years on their “epigenetic clock,” measured by analyzing marks on a person’s genomes.

“I’d expected to see slowing down of the clock, but not a reversal,” UCLA researcher Steve Horvath told Nature. “That felt kind of futuristic.”