The key findings from the 19 included studies on the effects of rapamycin and its derivatives on aging-related health outcomes are as follows:
Rapamycin and its derivatives improved physiological parameters associated with aging in the immune, cardiovascular, and integumentary systems in both healthy individuals and those with aging-related diseases.
No significant effects on the endocrine, muscular, or neurological systems were observed in the studies.
The effects of rapamycin or its derivatives on the respiratory, digestive, renal, and reproductive systems were not assessed in the reviewed studies.
In individuals with ageing-related diseases, there were increased numbers of infections and elevations in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides reported 1.
Studies did not find a clear relationship between the dose of rapamycin or its derivatives and their efficacy in ameliorating aging-related outcomes 9.
While rapamycin and its derivatives have shown benefits in animal models such as enhancing learning and memory and reducing neurodegeneration, these effects were not consistently observed in the human studies included in the review 8.
I see that 0.5 to 1 mg per day gives the most positive results. I don’t see any recommendation to take this dose (multiplied by 7 days) once a week. Looks like a small daily dose taken consistently every day has the most benefits.
Having read the whole review, I have to say I’m pretty disappointed. There are substantially more human data in age-wise “healthy” people and people with age-related diseases other than cancer or for immune suppression than I was aware of, and a discouragingly large amount of it is either null or gives signals of harm (such as some of the visual system indications).
One interesting thing is that while there are a lot of moving parts, the effects on the immune system and on rheumatoid arthritis (an autoimmune disorder) seem to be fairly consistently encouraging for everolimus but not for rapamycin itself.
Is anyone daily dosing their Rapamycin? I have to say, it’s a little more practical for me to simply take 1mg per day with the rest of my pills than take a bolus dose every once or two weeks.
A researcher at the Buck Institute, Pankaj Kapahi, takes rapamycin daily (but with regular breaks/ mini vacations). He’s the only one I know. I think he discusses it in Krister’s podcast here: New Rapamycin podcast with Pankaj Kapahi