Rapamycin is an immunosupressant drug, mainly used today after organ transplants. However, recently, scientists have discovered that it may have “gero-protective” properties, arguably offering between 9% and 14% of additional lifespan in humans.
The story of Rapamycin
Rapamycin is a molecule produced by a bacteria called “Streptomyces hygroscopicus”, and was first discovered in 1964, by a Canadian scientist in the Easter Island (do the mysterious staring eyes statues ring a bell?). This molecule was firsthand intriguing by its unusually strong antifungal properties.
A couple of years later, the pharmaceutical company which was financing the research, called Ayerst, closed their canadian lab, and formally requested all rapamycin cultures and extracts to be destroyed. However, one of the researchers, called Suren Sehgal, did not obey orders, and hid the samples from Easter Island in his personal fridge.
A few years later, the Sehgal’s new management team agreed to resume the research on Rapamycin. It proved useful in healing all sorts of fungal conditions (athlete’s foot, body rash, etc.), but also in partially suppressing immune reactions to organ transplant rejection (mainly kidneys and liver), for which it has been approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in 1999.
However, this is where things get really interesting: back in 2006, Rapamycin has been shown to lengthen the lifespan of eukaryotic cells, that is, cells from multi-cellular organisms such as humans (experts out there please pardon me for the extreme approximation of this definition).
Why this time it may be different
Discovering the “youth pill” has been a human obsession since the most ancient times. It has inspired myths, writers, poets, explorers, and charlatans throughout the ages. It is said that selling so-called magical “eternal youth potions” has been the 2nd oldest profession on Earth 🙂 Juan Ponce de Leon (1474 – 1521), was such an utopian explorer, who is said to have devoted his life to searching the “fountain of youth“. Of course, none of them came anywhere close to it.
Well, today, scientists have valid reasons to consider that the time has finally come for such a groundbreaking discovery. Before explaining how this molecule works in complex multi-cellular organisms, let me tell you why this time it’s different:
– Rapamycin has been tested in various animal models (yeast, worms, flies, mice) and worked in all of them, which is extremely rare for any drug. Is now being tested on primates (a short-lived monkey called “marmoset“), dogs, and even elder humans with yet to be formally confirmed but promising and encouraging results so far.
– Rapamycin “makes sense” as a gero-protective molecule, by inhibiting a specific pathway in the eukaryotic cells. This cellular mechanism appeared so early in the evolution of life on Earth, that it is common to a big proportion of life forms as of today. More on the scientific explanation below in this article.
– This is by no way a scientific proof of anything , but many world renown scientists and doctors who study the aging processes take Rapamycin and publicly admit it, even disclosing how much and frequently they take it. They’ve made their choice, decided not to wait until FDA approves it, they have “skin in the game”, they eat their own dog food 🙂
How and why Rapamycin works
Mammals have a mechanism called mTor (mammalian target of rapamycin), which works like an “organism growth manager”: when nutrients are proficient, the mTor pathway is activated, and the organism goes into “growth mode”, cells divide, the cell metabolism increases. When nutrients are scarce, mTor is inhibited, and the organisms tends to go in “survival mode”, and each cell tends to “recycle” its waste, save energy, instead of spoiling resources.
Well, what Rapamycin does, and this is why it seems to work as an anti-aging drug, is that it inhibits mTor, forcing the organism and each and every cell within it, to go into “survival” mode: less nutrients waste, more recycling, less cell division, more cell repair.
Caveats
While there are very strong reasons to consider that Ramaycin may be the first gero-protector in the History of Mankind, we need to take into account that as of today, the scientific community has not finished the work on this very promising molecule:
– studies on humans are still incomplete
– optimal posology is still unclear (how much, how frequently should one take it?)
– the FDA has not yet approved this drug as an anti-aging treatment
– this drug has some minor side-effects (called mouth ulcers, which may be easily treated however and are insignificant given the advantages)
– even if unlikely, this drug may have yet unknown adverse effects
– you cannot buy this drug without prescription, and you won’t get a prescription as an anti-agind drug in many countries (France being one of them). It seems you can buy it in Spain without prescription, but I haven’t yet investigated enough to be sure of it.
– remember that the stakes here is “only” 9% – 14% of additional lifespan, which is at the same time a lot and very little. It doesn’t prevent us all from all the other longevity measures (healthy diet, physical activity, etc …). Also, it doesn’t prevent us from pressing the pedal to the metal and discover more efficient gero-protectors, pushing the human healthspan even further.
Me?
Some people asked me if I was taking Rapamycin. Given my promise of transparency, let me share my conclusions when it comes to this drug:
– I have personally talked to many scientists and doctors from the longevity ecosystem, many of them take Rapamycin. Some of them were very convincing in explaining why. They don’t want to wait 20 years for the FDA to approve this drug, they’ll be dead by then. Surprisingly, even the most cautious of them take it, under the assumption that even if it’s not useful, at least it’s not harmful.
– Almost all the credible trials related to Rapamycin, and scientific papers, show the same positive conclusion, being published on a regular basis. Sometime in the future, the FDA will approve the treatment when it will be 99.99% certain (not sure of the exact percentage, I just want you to get the idea). Well, as more and more papers and clinical trials results get published, the certainty will go from 90% to 95%, then 99%, and so on, the whole process taking decades. As I read those papers, it’s an ongoing process, where at every step, certainty goes up. At some point, I’d take now a drug that is 99% certain, rather than wait 15 years for it to be 99.99% certain. The numbers I’m using to explain my point are imprecise, but the rationale behind it isn’t. It all comes down to a risk management problem.
– I’m not taking this drug as of now, because I want to set up a biomarker “before – after” tracking protocol, I have too much of an engineer mindset to test stuff on myself just on “believing” it might work. Measuring is an absolute necessity for me. I want to identify the right biomarkers to measure before taking Rapamycin, decide how much I’ll take and how frequently, during how much time, and after that time span I’ll measure the same biomarkers again, to see the difference. Another reason why I’m not taking it yet is that I have to find the right way to buy it, no doctor will prescribe that in France 🙂
When I’ll move forward with this drug, I’ll let you know!