And today, in Huffington Post:
Social Media Claims This FDA-Approved Pill Can Slow Down Aging. Can It?
Experts weigh in on people wanting to use the drug for longevity, and what else you need to know.
By Jillian Wilson
Apr 16, 2024, 03:00 AM EDT
What they get wrong, or don’t say, in the story:
The excitement around rapamycin as a longevity drug comes after studies showed years ago that low doses of rapamycin could increase the life span of mice by roughly 14%, said Dr. Elena Volpi, the director of the Sam and Ann Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
Actually:
Mouse lifespans dosed with higher levels of rapamycin have been increased as much as 26% to 30%: List of all the Mouse Studies Showing Rapamycin Lifespan Extension
“You can eyeball the differences between a human and a mouse,” Volpi said. “And they’re not just physical differences. There may be differences also in how they handle drugs and how we handle [the same drugs] as humans.”
Dr. Richard Miller would say:
The mTOR pathway is conserved in both mice and humans, and rapamycin seems to work the same in both.
Moreover, aging looks very similar in humans and mice. You can tell an old human by the quality of his or her hair, skin, how they walk and move, strength and mental acuity. It is very similar to mice, you can identify old mice through very similar measures. Aging seems to work very similarly in mice and humans. You can easily tell an old mouse and an old human. The process of aging in mice and humans seems to be very similar in most respects.
Rapamycin’s benefits are hotly debated — there haven’t been large-scale clinical trials to test how it impacts healthy people, Volpi said. There have been some small, short-term studies that looked at rapamycin’s impact on humans, but they focused on specific side effects of the drug, and not it’s overall impact on longevity.
The bottom line? It is not a good idea to take rapamycin for anti-aging at this point.
True, But…
There have not been any large-scale human clinical trials and there is no sign that these will ever be done because rapamycin is a generic drug and therefore there is no financial incentive to invest in a large clinical trial. Human clinical trials of rapamycin for longevity would likely take a decade or more even if they were approved and funded. Given this situation, and the fact that rapamcyin is an FDA approved drug already that has been in use for 20 years+, people are taking a risk/benefit calculation and trying rapamycin today.
Rapamycin has proven to extend healthy lifespan in every organism it has been tested in, from yeast through worms, flies and mice. And its showing good effects in rats and monkeys in ongoing tests.
