jnorm
#433
Very interesting why Eric Verdin quit. According to his statements in the Peter Attia podcast, he quit, because he could feel no effects, meanwhile he had some immune suppression based on getting a pimple on the nose on the day or the day after taking a dose of rapamycin. He was ultimately taking 4-6mg once a week. He also saw no impact of any kind from rapamycin on his bloodwork. Remarkably weak reasoning as I see it.
I have a colleague who hung out at the Buck Institute a bit and he told me (and I was shocked to hear) that the scientists he spoke with there there weren’t taking any supplements or drugs for longevity, and that they had a pretty condescending attitude towards drugs in general.
This was some years ago though, so maybe the square attitude there isn’t as prevalent as it used to be.
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Of course, if you are relatively young (compared to me at 85) and healthy, why would you feel any positive effects if nothing is broken? Why would you expect to see any significant change in your blood work?
One would expect the effects of rapamycin to show up in later years in the form of greater healthspan. We do not know if rapamycin affects human lifespan. But the increased healthspan would result in a lower death rate for the individuals taking rapamycin, producing an apparent median life extension.
I have been taking rapamycin for almost five years, and I feel much better since taking rapamycin. My blood work is excellent, especially for someone my age. The only negative impact on my blood work occurred when I first started taking rapamycin at large doses. It raised my fasting glucose and lipid levels slightly. I addressed this by taking medications to lower them.
The thing that surprises me the most is how virtually pain-free I am. Even my lower back pains have all but disappeared. In the last five years, as I previously posted, I have had no illnesses. No colds, flu, etc. So I believe this cannot be a placebo effect, and the immunosuppressive effect of weekly pulse dosing is nearly non-existent. You think someone getting a pimple on his nose after taking rapamycin is proof. No more evidence than my N=1 of never having gotten a pimple or mouth sore. It could just as likely be a coincidence or placebo effect because he has been reading other people’s reactions to rapamycin. As many as 30-40% of people will experience a placebo effect good or bad.
It is still way too early in the game for people to stop taking rapamycin because they feel no subjective or measurable effect.
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Jonas
#435
Buck since 1999, what have they done?
Jonas
#436
Could you share some specifics on this?
1 Like
I’ve been following this group for 2 years now. I’m still in the planning phase of my potential rapamycin journey.
I’m almost 64. My current conclusion is that starting around 65 years of age and using it for just a few years and then stop might be the optimal tradeoff between benefits, costs and caution, especially until we have human data and especially for otherwise healthy and fit people.
I think this strategy seems to work in mice. Start late in life and take it for a relative “short” period to get most of the longevity benefits
Some here seem surprised that Verdin, a leading longevity researcher, stopped taking rapamycin, but maybe he’s following a similar plan?
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When I was up there for the Longevity Summit conference I met a lot of the Buck researchers and many of the younger people were already taking rapamycin. Like anywhere you get a varying view on risk/reward.
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Yes, but the key issue here is how long is “short”? The 3 month mouse dosing (for example) might equate to something like 7 years in human terms.
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