Can Rapamycin Help You Live to 200?

The mTOR pathway is switched on when lots of nutrients are present and it stimulates growth and reproduction. If you impair the pathway, or make it less efficient, an organism will prepare for a situation with less nutrients, and begin to conserve and remodel tissue, says Selman. In this way, it is similar to the impact of calorie deficits in lab animals, pressing cells into a ‘repair, maintenance, rebuild’ mode. ‘Rapamycin inhibits a particular complex in the mTOR pathway. If you feed mice rapamycin, you extend their lifespan quite significantly,’ Selman explains. Low doses of rapamycin tunes down mTOR in mice and lengthens their lifespan. __ Can We Live Forever?

Rapamycin is an antifungal drug used most often to minimise organ rejection in organ transplant patients, and to coat prosthetic implants such as stents, to minimise rejection. Rapamycin is an allosteric inhibitor of mammalian TOR complex 1 (mTORC1), a regulator of cell growth and proliferation.

Can Aging Be Reversed by Rapamycin and Other Drugs?

The Slideshare presentation above was first spotted at Nextbigfuture. The presentation looks at research on a number of available prescription drugs that may lead to incremental life extension for some humans. Rapamycin is one particular drug that is receiving significant attention from scientists with an interest in gerontology. Metformin is another drug that shows some promise for life extension.

For significant ageing reversal, several different gene expression networks would have to be influenced. Many of these crucial networks have either not been defined, or are otherwise less than perfectly understood.

mTORC1 integrates multiple signals from growth factors, oxygen, energy levels and nutrients such as amino acids to promote cell growth and proliferation by activation of anabolic processes such as protein, lipid and nucleotide synthesis, stimulation of energy metabolism such as glycolysis and glutaminolysis, and inhibition of catabolic process such as autophagy.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3972801/

Rapamycin for Life Extension is Available From Some Physicians in US

NYC physician Alan S. Green was recently interviewed about his use of rapamycin in his practise of anti-ageing medicine.

Alan S. Green, M.D. understood the potential of rapamycin and began, and continues, to take it himself. He began to use rapamycin as the basis of his medical practice, and has so far treated hundreds of patients with it. I first interviewed Dr. Green a couple of years ago (here), and I’m pleased now to present an updated interview to discuss his experience with over two years of practicing anti-aging medicine using rapamycin.

Dr. Alan S. Green: My first anti-aging patient drove from Ontario, Canada to my NYC office on 4/22/17. Your first interview which posted on 6/5/17 was of huge importance in increasing patient awareness. The second patient was seen on 6/16/17. At that point in time, the only person in the public domain who had taken weekly rapamycin for a year or more was me.

Now approximately 2 years later, this office has seen over 360 patients. In my opinion, the results have been spectacular. No patient has died and nobody has had a serious complication. It is still my opinion that rapamycin is the greatest new drug since the dawn of the age of antibiotics some ninety years ago.

Documentation of the long-term results, which I expect to be that very many patients live to 105 in good health with a lowered incidence of cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease, should be available in 30 years. However, the short-term results are excellent. Weekly rapamycin is a safe drug. Good to excellent results are frequently apparent within months. Subjectively, many patients note an improvement in function of their brain and heart. They feel better, think better, have more energy and get less tired with moderate or strenuous physical activity. Weight control is much easier. Insulin sensitivity, I consider the best indicator of good metabolic health, usually improves. __ https://roguehealthandfitness.com/rapamycin-anti-aging-medicine-an-update-with-alan-s-green-m-d/

The comments section below the interview linked above contains one or two very interesting comments pertinent to the human use of rapamycin for anti-ageing.

Here is a longer list of US physicians who are practising anti-ageing medicine with the intent to reverse ageing.

Effects of rapamycin in various diseases. A growing body of evidence has demonstrated that although limited, rapamycin or rapalogs are beneficial for treating various diseases including cancer, diabetes, tuberous sclerosis complex, lymphangioleiomyomatosis, neurodegenerative diseases and aging. FDA-approved cases are described.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3972801/

Can Rapamycin Help You to Live to 200?

Not by itself, and probably not when combined with any other known drugs at this time. The use of drugs such as metformin and rapamycin may provide marginal (perhaps as much as 5-10 years) improvement in longevity for some lucky candidates. But the treatments are not without risk themselves. Be fully informed and walk cautiously, if you are considering this approach. Commercial anti-ageing has always been a haven for scammers.

Genuine age-reversal would require broad spectrum chemotherapy plus genetic alteration plus heavy-duty system cleaning and stem cell therapies. New forms of in situ organ tissue rejuvenation or partial organ transplants will be developed and utilised, with the likelihood of synthetic organ prosthetic implants — including endocrine replacement implants. The combined therapies would require several weeks at the start, and would be life-threatening — requiring the equivalent of intensive care hospitalisation for most of that time. The estimated cost for such a thing, if it were available, is roughly US $10 million (2019 dollars) for initial therapy plus testing… and a substantial yearly maintenance fee. Later, as risks and efficacies become better defined, the costs might come down closer to the six digit range. Insurances would not cover such things, so come with cash in hand.

In terms of therapeutic targets, anti-ageing medicine has come a long way in the past ten years. But having a target is just a beginning, not an accomplishment. With improved focus and growing experience, every year should bring new biochemical and gene targets — and perhaps some new therapeutic agents that are safer and more effective than the ones available now.

Old School Life Extension: Suspended Animation

The Cryonics Institute and the Alcor Foundation are two institutions that have offered cryonic suspended animation to customers at death. This is done in the explicit hope that future science will allow customers to be revived sometime years from now, largely whole and rejuvenated. Clearly such an approach is not ready for prime time, but for many people it seems the best chance for an afterlife.

A form of “lite suspended animation” which is finding its way into US hospitals, is Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation (EPR). EPR is a very short-term, last gasp attempt to resuscitate a dying patient when all other methods have failed. It involves using whole body replacement of blood by ice-cold saline (or other more complex iv solutions). This stops the heart and essentially quiets all brain activity. It also minimises metabolic activity in other, less active organs.

EPR is only good for ten minutes or so, and from the outset it is likely to fail due to the selection process itself: It is only used when chances for survival are extremely low.

EPR grew directly from a procedure that has been used for several decades in open heart surgery: cardioplegia.

Cardioplegic solutions provide myocardial protection via a combination of three overlapping mechanisms:

induction of chemical cardiac arrest,

myocardial hypothermia, and

additional protection provided by measures such as the addition of acid–base buffers, energy substrates, or oxygenated blood to the cardioplegia infusion. _ More

While the heart is stopped, the patient’s blood circulation is sent through a “heart-lung” machine and is carefully monitored to prevent extracorporeal clotting.

Even this very basic long-utilised form of “suspended animation” requires careful balancing to maximise the chances for successful resuscitation.

Practical Life Extension

Eat healthy and regular meals ample for your nutritional needs. Exercise daily. Sleep regularly, at least 7 hours nightly on average. Avoid unnecessary and unproductive stress — but learn to deal with unexpected stress as it occurs. Take a daily well balanced multi-vitamin that dissolves well in water (test it yourself against other brands), avoiding excess iron. Set short, intermediate, and long-term goals of a positive nature — and plot your path toward them using a method such as Jordan Peterson’s “self-authoring.”

Beyond that you must do your own research and make decisions for yourself. There is a delicate balance between wise supplementation and “making very expensive urine.” Be your own authority and your own doctor, because in this field the best medical authorities are themselves just “winging it.” Use medical people for their value as well-read reference sources and sounding boards. By tuning in to the right frequencies you can often hear things that may lead you to rich veins of ore. But always beware of things that sound too good to be true.

More:

The Fight Aging! website can help you keep updated on the research. That site has been on the blogroll of most of the Al Fin blogs for over a decade. Consult the fightaging.org blogroll for a long list of anti-ageing related websites and other resources.

Macrolide antibiotics seem to be unconventional senolytics