I spoke with a woman who I think is in her early 40s, last week who is starting rapamycin to maintain her fertility and prevent / delay menopause. She will be writing about the process, and the results over the coming months and I’ll provide a link to her articles when they come out.
But this got me thinking and I’m wondering if there are other women here who might be taking rapamycin to either enhance their fertility (maintain their fertility as they age past 30) or for menopause prevention. Please post your experience if you are.
Following is some research on how rapamycin has proven to help in fertility:
Fertility
In terms of female fertility, there is already strong evidence in mice and rats that rapamycin delays (reverses?) reproductive aging in females.
Here are some such studies that report this benefit:
- Short‐term rapamycin treatment increases ovarian lifespan in young and middle‐aged female mice.
- Eapamycin can preserve the developmental potential of eggs.
- Rapamycin keeps the reproductive clock ticking.
- Rapamycin prolongs female reproductive lifespan.
- Effect of caloric restriction and rapamycin on ovarian aging in mice
[Note: other compounds like Ca-AKG and NMN seem to also help with preservation of fertility (sources: 1, and 2). So perhaps an ideal approach would be to combine these three approaches.]
There are researchers who argue that rapamycin effectively “slows down time” from a biological growth and development perspective - while maintaining that potential for growth in the future. I’ve spoken to some academics at major US universities that are planning more studies focused on rapamycin and human fertility so its an area ripe for more research, but the preliminary evidence is very encouraging. It seems to me that preservation of fertility is easier and more likely than reversal of fertility loss, but of course, I could be wrong.
Menopause
If rapamycin is slowing fertility declines, then it suggests that it might also delay or prevent menopause. And while there is no research on this published that I can find, there are annecdotal reports that people are seeing this:
I just wanted to inform the group of an interesting ongoing small pilot study I’ve been doing at home. I’ve been feeding my chickens that I purchased in 2017 as chicks, rapamycin for the past two years on a periodic basis. One of the chickens died last year due to a plugged duct, which is a common problem. But prior to that, and with the one remaining chicken that is now on year 4 of egg production, the daily egg product is still up at the 90% to 95% daily laying schedule that is typical only of much younger chickens - 1 year olds, for example (see below). So my 4 year old chicken is laying eggs like a 1 year old chicken. Obviously, N=1 doesn’t mean too much, but the indication seems quite positive and supports all the research mentioned above.
What the Typical Egg Laying Ability Trend Line is for Chickens (No Rapamycin)
