AnUser
#1
Like the title says, what has more evidence in humans, calorie restriction and/or protein restriction, compared with rapamycin?
I’d say Rapamycin is more predictable. CR is a U-shaped curve where everyone’s U is different. It doesn’t mean it’s bad, but there’s the potential if you overdo it.
There’s no long-term penalty for overdoing Rapamycin (almost), therefore I feel it is superior to CR. And you don’t feel constantly cold and hungry.
Also, I’d say Rapamycin is superior to CR as it doesn’t make me want to kill myself. 
3 Likes
CR is a no-go IMO because it makes adding and maintaining lean mass much harder.
Living longer isn’t worth it if you’re too weak to do anything and any fall will probably do you in.
2 Likes
AnUser
#4
What about protein restriction then?
Evidence for what? Neither has been studied (and likely never will be) for lifespan extension. For improving metabolic markers and risk factors, I think CR and various forms of fasting has more evidence in total.
As someone else pointed out, a downside of CR (or protein restriction) is that it is global and results in loss of lean body mass. So for people with normal BMI, it’s hard to see it being advantageous long-term, especially with age-related sarcopenia.
3 Likes
AnUser
#6
How does strength training counteract this effect and does possible age slowing from CR and protein restriction counteract it as well? I wouldn’t want to underestimate the anti-fraility effects from age slowing itself, but I don’t know how to compile all of these different aspects on its whole, if clinical trials are what we need.
I meant evidence on outcomes that show an effect that might be extrapolated past the duration of the trial, i.e from protein restriction, CR, or rapamycin, which is better.
To my knowledge, all we have are short-term interventional studies of less than 6 months. They show preservation of LBM, but I’d argue they aren’t long-term enough to really extrapolate.
Intuitively, strength training should offset some LBM losses. However, at the end of the day, amino acids are the building blocks which are required for muscle building and there’s no real way around that. If you’re not consuming enough, at some point it’s difficult to grow, or even maintain muscle.
1 Like
AnUser
#8
To be clear, and sorry, what I mean with protein restriction isn’t consuming lower protein than what’s required, but not more than usual, i.e 0.8 g/kg instead of 1.6 g/kg, the amount of LBM being able to be maintained or even built might not be that different from higher proteins but avoid aging more (I know there are studies on showing faster muscle growth over a period with higher protein, but don’t know max muscle)?
So the question is:
0.8 g/kg/protein
0.8 g/kg/protein + CR
rapamycin
or even higher protein + rapa
Combined with or without strength training.
Which has better evidence in humans in short term trials or similar (extrapolated)? 
What combination has better evidence in humans?
2 Likes
There is no max muscle, but around age 75 you can lose it very quickly during any interruption in training. I don’t think you’ll find any studies to prove anything because you can’t lock people in cages for decades, but intuitively, it makes sense to stay in lean bulking resistance training and do lots of cardiovascular work because that will help keep you metabolically healthy, strong enough to avoid falling, and holding enough muscle to avoid losing too much muscle to sarcopenia.
In CR is very difficult to add muscle or train hard for cardiovascular health. I can see using CR in short bursts if your DEXA scan shows a little more fat than you’d like and pushing through a month of training, but that isn’t something I think you can do long term.
2 Likes
AnUser
#10
x.com/KarlPfleger/status/1895194038644678976#m
Is it possible to measure year to year changes in strength and muscle mass to detect efficacy of sarcopenia prevention, or does it come suddenly?
It comes in chunks during illness and injury. We need headroom (extra muscle and strength) to have room to fall. Then we won’t have fallen too low to recover. But then we need to build back.
1 Like
RPS
#12
I can attest to this given how my period with a frozen shoulder impacted my ability to exercise.
8 pull-ups fell to 2 on my first attempt back.
Dead hang time dropped from 90 seconds to 50.
Bench press is 20% lower.
Squats is 10% lower (I could carry on with dead lifts, which probably lessened the drop back in squats).
Now actively trying to build back up.
2 Likes
@RPS Did Rapamycin fix your frozen shoulder?
RPS
#14
Hi Chris,
See Frozen Shoulder and Rapamycin
In simple terms it definitely helped as it halted the decline, but it was all the exercises that rectified it (without the need for an operation).
2 Likes