#5

Your numbers are amazing. You may live forever. Thanks for posting.

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#6

So, we don’t know exactly why rapamycin provides such high levels of lifespan extension in all the research studies. One of the key means that people think it works is by increasing autophagy. Unfortunately we don’t have any good ways of measuring that in a clinic yet, so no good biomarkers. You can read more about this issue here: Measuring Autophagy in Body and Brain, Comparing Autophagy Activators

related: Autophagy takes it all – autophagy inducers target immune aging

Another way rapamycin is thought to work, and increase longevity, is via reductions in inflammation. There are different measures of inflammation, CRP (best measured by the High Sensitivity CRP blood test), but there are also many other measures, including IL-6, etc. (Interlukin-6), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and procalcitonin (PCT), etc.

I’ve not dove deep into the inflammatory biomarkers however - so perhaps others can comment on them.

Related: Cytokines for evaluation of chronic inflammatory status in ageing research: reliability and phenotypic characterisation | Immunity & Ageing | Full Text

Another pontential area of biomarkers to track that should be significantly improved with rapamycin are senescent cells and SASP:

a… drug screen using human primary fibroblasts identified rapamycin as a potent inhibitor of SASP (Herranz et al., 2015). As previously discussed, SASP and senescence in immune cells as well as in HSCs, contribute to age-associated pathologies (Chen et al., 2009; Desdín-Micó et al., 2020). Therefore, preventing immune senescence in older people with rapamycin or other rapalogs appears to be a promising approach in the development of geroprotective treatments for diseases that disproportionally affect the elderly, such as seasonal flu, COVID-19 and osteoarthritis (Bischof et al., 2021; Dhanabalan et al., 2021 preprint). Source: Autophagy takes it all – autophagy inducers target immune aging | Disease Models & Mechanisms | The Company of Biologists

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#7

So the majority of your biomarkers moved in the wrong direction?

#8

:point_up_2: if anyone has recommendations / thoughts on good inflammation panel / tests that would be amazing

#9

No, have never done that. Not sure where to have it done or how much it costs.

#10

Its mostly free… just the regular cheap blood tests that it sounds like you’ve already done. See this thread: A Friendly Biological Age Reduction Competition?

#11

Certainly not a stupid question. I’ve been taking rapamycin for the better part of two years and it has not improved any of my bio-markers that I am aware of. Quite the opposite, I now have to work hard to keep my bio-markers in the “good” range.
I feel I have had a lot of benefits from taking rapamycin that I have posted in other threads so I won’t go into them here.

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#12

Using the Lustgarten spreadsheet, phenotypic age is 51.58 versus actual age of 59.5.
However, plugging in the 2022 (pre-rapa) numbers, phenotypic age was 48.3 versus actual age of 58.2
Thus one could say that my phenotypic age has gotten slightly worse under rapa - I was “10 years younger” phenotypically in 2022 versus “8 years younger” now.
But I think the variation in the biomarkers may account for this. I don’t think the tests are that precise. I could probably have blood taken again tomorrow and the results would give me “ten years younger” again versus the “eight years younger” that I just got.

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#13

Possibly your biomarkers are “getting worse more slowly” due to rapa?

#14

No, they were great before rapamycin. It took me many months after starting rapamycin to get them back in range.

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#15

More likely, I think, is that we really don’t have the best biomarkers to track yet. Still an area that needs work.

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#16

I’m right there with you. My Aging.ai age got worse but my Levine did not. My epigenetic age got better. So on 3 different calculators 1 got better, 1 got worse and 1 stayed the same after Rapa. Go figure.

They are converging better now though. Aging.ai and Levine both say I am 13 years younger now. Epigenetic spit test says I’m 11 years older

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#17

As I always say, “when in doubt, use the biomarker that makes you younger” :wink:

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#18

Your results are great! Have you observed any subjective difference since you started Rapamycin? I suspect that the potential benefits of Rapamycin are not all encapsulated in the tests currently available.

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#19

Frankly no. I attribute my feelings of well-being to diet and exercise, which I was already doing before I started rapa. Possibly I would have noticed more of a difference if I was more sickly and decrepit before I started the rapa…

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#20

Possibly I would have noticed more of a difference if I was more sickly and decrepit before I started the rapa…

So, you’re saying that those of us who feel something after taking Rapa are…

:wink:

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#21

My blood markers were very good before Rapa and did not improve on Rapa. Still, I have eliminated allergies (mild), dramatically reduced joint pain, and have a reason to hope that my immune system improvements will also result in other improvements that will extend my healthspan.

On the blood marker point, I just recorded a podcast Dr Austin Baraki (of Barbell Medicine) on the imperfections of blood tests so no one should take these blood marker calculators as more than directional (at best). I’ll publish it in August.

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#22

Oddly, rapamycin has had nothing but negative effects on my glucose and lipid markers.
I have experienced many positive effects from rapamycin that I have listed in other threads.
So, I use supplements and drugs to keep my glucose and lipid levels down to my pre-rapamycin levels.

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#23

Metformin, Bempedoic Acid and Ezetemibe have countered my hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia from Rapamycin almost perfectly.

However I wish my HBA1C (5.4) and LDL (65) were still lower…

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#24

I took a blood test on 9/19/23 and then, almost a year later on 9/17/24 I tested again. During that year I spent 6 months on a pulsed rapamycin schedule and 6 months off.

Unfortunately my 23’ test wasn’t very extensive, but majority of markers trending in right direction. Glucose went from 94 to 91, LDL from 95 to 83, triglycerides from 58 to 44, IGF-1 from 191 to 178, E2 from 25 to 28.9, and eGFR from 108 to 119.

RDW trended in the wrong direction (12.5 to 13), and NLR increased as well (1 to 1.27).

Ofc it’s impossible to say these changes are due to rapa, and most of them probably aren’t outside of normal fluctuations, but fwiw rapa was the primary longevity drug or supplement I took over the past year. I also hadn’t taken rapa for months leading up to the 2nd test. I did take taurine daily for the past year and glycine for a few months, and briefly used acarbose as well.

One other thing worth mentioning is that I developed a bit of an opiate habit over the past year, that mostly stemmed from a relationship ending. This started with a few months of using kratom daily, which I then quit. However, I then switched to taking 7-HO-mitragynine daily, which is something I’m now eliminating from frequent usage. No idea how this may have impacted biomarkers, although the kratom seems to be more harmful. I found it to cause hair shedding and poorer skin quality which was why I stopped taking it, and I found many similar reports on Reddit. It’s unclear what the cause is, although some have speculated it’s due to heavy metals. 7-HO-mitragynine (which is a minor alkaloid of kratom, and probably the primary pharmacological mediator of its opiate effects) doesn’t appear to affect hair or skin quality.

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