The popular press continues to learn about rapamycin, and cover it…
From a $1 pill that treats diabetes to a mysterious chemical unearthed on EasterIsland, researchers are searching for ways to banish old age.
Many projects have focused on increasing the length of time that the person is healthy, while others have offered the hope of rejuvenating cells to make skin look 30 years younger.
A promising anti-aging treatment could be a drug used in chemotherapy and a compound found in vegetables, which allowed mice to live longer, reduced disease risk and boosted stamina.
and, of course, they get the “percent lifespan increase” confused in this part of the story (the 60% is from this paper, and the calculation is based only on the remaining lifespan, not the total lifespan as is typical in lifespan papers so its misleading:
The Easter Island drug
Among the most promising treatments under investigation for use in anti-ageing is a chemical discovered 50 years ago in Easter Island.
Rapamycin, which is produced by soil bacteria in the remote Pacific island, inhibits signalling related to ageing - and has been shown to increase lifespan by 20% in yeast, 19% in worms, 24% in flies and 60% in mice, according to The Lancet.