Curious if there are other “fairly healthy” individuals who have been taking rapamycin for trying to live longer and healthier with a history of previous heart attacks.
I had a series of three all within a month in 2020 and my diagnosis ran the gamut of “Scad, Myocardial Bridge, to just plaque to maybe all three to currently… we may never know why but let’s go with Prinzmetal Angina.
I’m healthy, eat well, workout and cholesterol levels great with no family hx. I do have high blood pressure likely from being kind of an anxious gal.
Curious to learn, chat, discuss with others on this topic.
I take reservastol as a statin alternative and then Diltiazem and a baby aspirin.
Thanks!!
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What numerically is high blood pressure?
When and how often do you measure it?
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Define what you consider great cholesterol levels please. Have you seen this thread: Saúde Cardiovascular
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Hi John,
It can be 170/110s but on typically it seems to stay in the 130s/ high 80s. I take my bp In the mornings after my warm glass of water and sit for a few minutes. My cardiologist advised to keep an eye on it but not to take any new medication as a result of the current readings.
I take diltiazem 240mg, a calcium channel blocker and a baby aspirin and reservastol currently. It would be most awesome if the rapamycin could help my heart arteries and heart be more supple and happy. 
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Well, up until my most recent labs, my HDL was always high 90s and my LDL in the 40s and my total cholesterol under 200. Sadly my most recent labs showed the numbers to be HDL still good but LDL 123 and my total 234. Total shocker as I eat super healthy and exercise. I just ordered some naturopathic red yeast rice to start taking…
Thank you for your response.
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KarlT
#6
@Julester What led you to take Resveratrol, and is it for your heart?
Dr.Bart
#7
Rapamycin seem to improve cardiomyopathy in dogs, so if your MI caused fibrosis and CM, it’s possible that rapamycin can help. I doubt that rapamycin would prevent coronary vasospasm.
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Luckily, my last stress echo test showed “minimal if any heart damage” so even if rapamycin doesn’t help with vasospasms, I’m still interested in the many other areas of the body that rapamycin may benefit. Just trying to stay informed and educated regarding the safety of it with my existing condition.
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Thought I answered you here but maybe not…mainly to help prevent further heart attacks!! I was put on 5mg crestor in 2020 not because I had bad cholesterol but because it is considered a safety net…kind of like the baby aspirin. I learned of reservastol and its ability to lower cholesterol and asked my cardiologist if I could swap.
My most recent labs however showed a higher cholesterol reading than I’ve had in all my past labs so now I’m taking red yeast rice supplements too! We shall see what my cholesterol levels are in a few months.
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AnUser
#10
So what did they say?
Not medical advice, but:
Effect seems to be a 5 mg/dl decrease, compare it to 5 mg rosuvastatin ~50 mg/dl at your level, a 10x difference…
I have a hard time believing a cardiologist would think this replacement is a good idea for secondary prevention. Statins also have other benefits that lifestyle or supplements can’t replace (plaque stabilization, reducing inflammation, etc). Most importantly they are proven to reduce risk of events.
You should also look at the thread on BP, where optimal is lower as long as no symptoms (risk of falls), to reduce risk of events:
Also make sure to optimize everything else (HbA1C, untreated diabetes, lose weight with GLP-1 agonist like Ozempic if you’re overweight or obese – Ozempic reduce risk of events: which are things like stroke, MI’s, etc).
You can really manage your risk profile if you do everything right and if you are uncertain get a top cardiologist if you can.
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AnUser
#11
You can also try DrFraser’s practice here, which also is a member here and understands risk management with many factors, sorted by evidence and efficacy:
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Striving to be healthy both mentally and physically have been goals of mines since my mid 20s! I eat well, exercise and listen to lots of Mel Robbin’s haha. I have a few cardiologists and it’s so interesting how they all have such different opinions on diagnoses, etc. I am about 102lbs and 5’5” and work out regularly. The heart stuff came out of left park ballfield!! Anyways, one cardiologist I admire wasn’t thrilled with approval of the swap but said I could test it out. I’m going on 6 months now.
He wasn’t as open to inquiry about rapamycin, lol.
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I would suggest you look at bempadoic acid and ezetimibe (Zetia) if you don’t like the statins you are taking. Most of us here have had good luck with them.
See these discussion threads:
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JeffW
#14
I did a CIMT a month post MI, in Sept 2023, that showed presence of plaque in my carotid arteries. My Apo B went from 81 to 38 on 10 mg Crestor. I’m also on intermittent use of rapa. I’ve done some major lifestyle changes post MI. I did a follow up CIMT in late January 2025, and that result shows no plaque. No sure what to make of these findings! You’ll see two images - one shows plaque and the follow up with none.
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Beth
#15
@JeffW Wow Jeff, that is an excellent ApoB! Good for you! I haven’t been able to break lower than 40, but have recently added bempedoic acid to the brew, so we shall see.
@Dr.Bart Great to see that study! My vet sent me a study that showed Rapamycin also showed effectiveness in cat hearts. Incase you are curious, here you go…
javma-javma.23.04.0187 (1) Rapamycin HCM.pdf (885.8 KB)
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I’m not sure I’d believe them. I’ve not read much on CIMT yet, but it seems its not as good as other options. See here what Peter Attia’s group uses:
What diagnostics can capture the level of damage currently present in the arteries?
- The pathology slides discussed earlier show different levels of damage
- Biomarkers won’t differentiate this
The 2 most important things we can look at are:
- 1 – Coronary artery calcium (CAC) score
- 2 – A CT angiogram (CTA)
Calcium score (CAC)
- This is done by doing a very quick CT scan of the heart without any intravenous contrast
- It looks at the amount of calcification in the coronary arteries
- This is very late in the disease process
- Once you have calcium formation around coronary arteries you’re at the 2nd to last stage of atherosclerosis
- It’s a late stage of healing
- Calcium formation is a very advanced finding of disease but it doesn’t tell you much about what’s happening at the point of calcification
- Just yesterday, Peter got a patient’s calcium score back and it was not a very high number, but it wasn’t 0
- That’s already a big red flag
- It was at one part of their heart, but that doesn’t really tell much
- The fact that they have a score of, say 15 at one part of their left anterior descending really means nothing about what’s happening there
- But that becomes a real global alarm given that person’s age (early 40s)
- Further, if they have a calcified point right there, they undoubtedly have atherosclerosis elsewhere
The CT angiogram (CTA) is a much better test
- But it comes at a higher cost and it comes with more radiation
- At really good places, it should be in the ballpark of 2 millisieverts of radiation
- That’s a very small dose of radiation, about 4% of your annual allotted radiation, according to the NRC
- A CT scan of the heart (this one is with contrast) captures the calcification
- They typically run a dry scan first to look for calcium
- But then once the contrast is in, you can see with great illumination the arteries
- This gives a better sense of the luminal narrowing and the presence of soft plaque
Really, the CAC and the CTA are a very important thing that we use also in risk prediction, especially if the patient is themselves on the fence about preventative measures
Source: Heart Disease: Labs & Diagnostic Tests - Peter Attia
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Beth
#18
I love this so much! And just like that… a new nickname for them was born!
All three have been on it for a month and their very old selves do seem to be perkier! I can’t really be sure because they are old cats who have good weeks and meh weeks.
I think my husband felt left out, so he is now on week 2!
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I’ll speak from a prevention perspective below.
On cimt vs CAC, I think it was Dr Snyder in Attia pods art that said that by the time you are calcium on your CAC scan, you’ve developped ascvd. So for me, it’s a lagging indicator, if you’re looking at prevention. Note that you can have a CAC score of 0 and high ldl.
Cimt shows both soft and calcified plaque, which in theory should show you the progession of the disease if you take one every year.
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KarlT
#20
It’s clear to me you’re trying to optimize your health, so I’ll make two comments.
I’m unaware of any good evidence that resveretrol lowers cholesterol.
I don’t think anyone should take red yeast rice. It’s far better to take a statin.
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