I hate to say it, but we still haven’t located the fountain of youth. Unfortunately, that means there’s no current medical breakthrough that will meaningfully reverse the global demographic problem.
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I follow Peter. Former Stratfor guy. Provides often insightful analysis. He has long warned of a demographic collapse, not enough new/young people to support aging populations.
China at most risk. Its one child policy decimated the population and further the number of women will likely undermine any successes the country could claim.
Then Japan, Western Europe, Canada, the US. All facing demographic challenges.
He doesn’t seem to have any awareness of Rapamycin, which if very widely deployed could mitigate the asymmetry by increasing health spans that kept people productive so that agin population had less dependence on the young.
When might Rapamycin become a strategic solution to demographics?
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Rapamycin has not yet been proven to extend lifespan in human clinical trials. A more promising compound is Metformin, as it is currently the only known substance proven to extend the lifespan of cynomolgus monkeys—a result far more significant than those found in mice. Dr. Alan Green prescribed Rapamycin for anti-aging to over 1,500 people, yet he only lived to be 81. Mikhail Blagosklonny, the editor-in-chief of the journal Aging, was the first to propose Rapamycin for anti-aging and one of the earliest adopters; however, he passed away at only 63. Neither of them lived longer than the average U.S. life expectancy. Even Bryan Johnson, a prominent leader in the anti-aging movement, has stopped taking Rapamycin.
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Of course, I’m not downplaying rapamycin—it remains the most promising anti-aging compound available. However, these n=1 trials reveal that it isn’t a ‘silver bullet.’ Even Dr. Linus Pauling, who famously took tens of grams of Vitamin C daily, outlived many of the medical experts currently experimenting with rapamycin.
We are still in the ‘toddler phase’ of the journey toward longevity. KarlT’s advice is spot on: we must view these drugs with caution and keep diet and exercise as our first-tier priorities.
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Any extension of healthspan (productive years, not even lifespan) could put off demographic collapse and buy time for other solutions.
… n=1 trials reveal that it isn’t a ‘silver bullet.’
n-1 trails = random noise.
There aren’t even any human clinical trials on Rapamycin regarding healthspan. One of the few human trials related to anti-aging ([https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0531556517309130?via%3Dihub]) showed no changes in any clinical laboratory markers, cognitive function, or physical performance. It’s not even as effective as NMN. While Rapamycin might be the most prominent success in mouse studies, it ranks dead last in human clinical trials—there is just too little evidence.
Of course, we could argue that the dosage and frequency in the clinical trials were flawed. However, the current evidence for Rapamycin is nowhere near sufficient for large-scale adoption. We must maintain scientific rigor. Bryan Johnson has likely undergone more testing than anyone in human history; if even he has given up on it, and given that several leading figures who took Rapamycin lived no longer than—or even less than—the average US life expectancy, how can we possibly convince others that this extends life? Based solely on mouse trials?
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Maybe not, but given the risk of demographic collapse across China, Europe, Japan, Canada, and the US. I suggest It merits fast tacking the studies.
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Research is accelerating, but the primary bottleneck remains a lack of funding. The TAME (Targeting Aging with Metformin) trial is the first anti-aging clinical study in history to receive FDA approval. It represents humanity’s first official, formal attempt to treat “aging” as a targetable medical condition
The total funding required for the trial reaches $75 million. Once successful, TAME will establish a regulatory precedent, clearing the path for future biotech companies to develop drugs targeting specific aging mechanisms, such as cellular senescence and telomere shortening. Therefore, the primary focus of the field right now is absolutely not on Rapamycin, but on the success of this landmark trial.
I’ve never heard this guy speak of longevity before. It’s cool to see it being mentioned in this context.
Birth rate problems aren’t really biological in this sense imo. It is cultural, political and socioeconomic.
Almost every incentive structure targeting men and women right now is completely wrong for increasing birth rates.
I want birth rates and longevity to be addressed. I don’t think either one alone should be focused on.
I disagree. Even just discovering Omipalisib was worth funding MMC, it showed that mTOR inhibitors are not just Rapamycin. There are 301 more molecules being studied by them right now, who knows what comes up?
The funding raised for this wouldn’t have put a dent into funding a human clinical trial. Human trials cost millions to be done right.
Also there are trials beginning now testing rapamycin, an SGLT2i and a GLP1RA: TIME: Rapa, SGLT2i and GLPa chosen for first Phase 3 clinical trial in aging!
I would say the best we could do as a community right now would be funding a mouse lifespan trial for a particularly promising intervention. I’m hoping the ITP accepts some of our applications! That would save a lot of money for us haha.
I take back what I said, I didn’t give it enough thought before. The Million Molecule Challenge is essentially basic research and is vital in the long run. It helps us identify promising molecules, which saves us a significant amount of time.
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That’s an 8 week duration trial. You cannot determine with an 8 week trial whether something is beneficial for aging or not. You can get important clues, but true effectiveness, or lack of, takes much longer to become apparent. This is one of the failure modes I mentioned in the article I just wrote about how to think about interventions: How to Think About Longevity Interventions — By Looking for Where They Break
There are many reasons for why his n=1 experiment does not tell us much about whether rapamycin is beneficial for longevity or not (personally I totally ignore his experiment when determining whether rapamycin is beneficial or not). I’m not going to go into detail on that, but I want to emphasize that the thing that many people do not realize is that despite being in some ways the most tested man in history, the tests he undertook before during and after taking rapamycin cannot determine with decent certainty whether rapamycin was beneficial for his aging process or not. It’s very hard to measure the aging process and short term biomarker changes can give false ideas on what’s going on over the long run.
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