Cancer is constantly trying to take hold in our bodies and generally speaking our immune systems deal with it before it can get established.
Hence the compromised immune systems of transplant patients and those who take massive Rapa doses will be susceptible to cancer.
I’m staying on the Rapa at a dosage level that doesn’t take my WBC’s etc below the normal acceptable ranges. (For me that is 1mg per 10kg body weight fortnightly).
As some paper state the opposite
Re posting;
As I stated on my above post;
Would also be doing many other self treatment very few would be “standard of care”.
FWIW
Would be review Dr. Robert Nagourney testing work.
Now called Nagourney Cancer Insitute (formerly Rational Therapeutics)
In my view Nagourney consumer book titled “Outliving Cancer” from 2012 is worth reading.
He also has some good Podcast’s
Unfortunately the paper you referenced was written by Dr. Blagosklonny. Unfortunately, given the situation I believe we have to discount his papers speaking about the hypothetical protection from cancer. Most of his papers are derived from his theories which may be flawed
dated 2015, Is there anything more recent for the comparison?
You{and some other, maybe] have "discounted his paper.
I think the majority do not.
Argue/rebuttal his theory.
Not based on his personal diagnosis{N=1]
Most of the arguments and rebuttals have already been discussed, but here are some from the paper you referenced:
Rapamycin (sirolimus) and other rapalogs (everolimus) are anti-cancer
While this is true for some cancers such as skin cancer, it appears to be false for others such as lung cancer as referenced in the graph above by RCTs.
Data on the use of rapamycin and everolimus in organ-transplant patients are consistent with their cancer-preventive effects.
Again, this comment by Dr. B is skewed. In some cases, it prevents, and in some cases it promotes cancer. In science, you should not cherry-pick your results to fit your worldview.
The statements about cancer prevention in humans that he makes are all correct. However, Dr. B fails to state the other side which we have started doing here. Yes, skin cancer and kidney cancer risks decrease, but lung and prostate cancer chances increase. The results have been cherry-picked by Dr. B. It’s time we stopped looking through Dr. B’s rose-colored glasses and start taking a more pragmatic approach.
You shouldn’t make decisions about your health without considering both sides of the equation. IMHO, Dr. B has been focusing on the positive side only. I have been guilty of that as well up until this point. I think it’s now time to equally balance both sides of the equation.
What is the point of preventing skin or kidney cancer if you end up with metastisized lung or prostate cancer?
A theory isn’t true unless proven true. It’s a matter of time to prove it or disprove it. I’m sure it’ll be done some time in the future. We all hope that Rapamycin is the thing!
His diagnoses and his theories are interconnected. We just don’t know a degree of that interconnection. To completely dismiss the diagnoses and separate it from his theories doesn’t seem logical. At least to me. I hope he’s right: most likely I’ll be on rapamycin for life and I cannot discontinue it as some other lucky people.
@LaraPo At least you don’t have to worry about prostate cancer!
In all seriousness, you seem to have the best grasp on your specific use of Rapamycin, and I do believe your dosing schedule may be close to an optimal one for human health. I am adopting a lower dosage at a longer interval in order to get the benefits of Rapamycin and autophagy without lowering my immune system as much in order to protect myself from cancer.
In some ways, I feel like this dosing issue is like balancing on a seesaw. I think it’s a U-shaped curve where everyone’s U is different based on their individual biology.
Please review the authors’ credentials carefully as they are not physicians.
A lung cancer OR at 3, should have a pretty low absolute risk for it, anyway.
There isn’t any evidence it would increase, at longer treatment/higher dosage.
Lung cancer is very rare in non-smokers. There is an absolute risk at 0.4%, increase that by 3 times based on transplant patients and an assosciation? Still pretty low?
I think you’re jumping to conclusions here. A few things… correlation does not equal causation (cancer and rapamycin), generally the risk of cancer seems to decrease in most instances with rapamycin.
Also - dosing is always important with any drug or compound. There is an LD50 for most compounds in the world. So most compounds are “deadly” at some dosing level and frequency, even water:
The LD50 for Water (for Humans) is something over 6 liters in three hours… " Water, just like any other substance, can be considered a poison when over-consumed in a brief period of time."
I think the issue with rapamycin has always been finding the balance between being high enough to inhibit mTOR at a level that maximizes longevity, while not going so high that other problematic side effects start to decrease the longevity benefits. This dosing optimization challenge is likely both age and personal genetics dependent.
The new N of 1 example of Blagosklonny (an ex-smoker) getting cancer really shouldn’t get anyone too concerned, in my opinion. I’m obviously very disappointed for many reasons to hear about it, but it doesn’t change my goal and approach of trying to find that optimal balance for me WRT rapamycin.
Maybe I am getting a little too cautious. Cancer strikes a nerve with me as it has affected many members of my family. The fact that Rapamycin was touted as a cancer preventative was one of my main reasons for taking it. The fact that it may help metastasize cancer is a truly scary thought for me. This swings the pendulum in the other direction for me which is making me more cautious.
I do plan to continue to take Rapamycin, but at a lower dose over a longer period of time between dosing.
@AnUser Thanks for that. Yes, 1.2% is still pretty low even though it is 3X more than 0.4%
Hopefully, this is all a tempest in a teapot. Unfortunately, it has been significant enough of an event to ruffle my feathers.
Meh, it is just an anecdote, shouldn’t really influence decision making.
I’m just worried that the NYT is going to make an article if everyone was just blindly ignoring this, like a rapamycin cult in the making. Everyone taking rapamycin even though their ‘leader’ got aggressive cancer.
A 2013 study of cancer and death in kidney transplant patients.
Conclusions Sirolimus was associated with a reduction in the risk of malignancy and non-melanoma skin cancer in transplant recipients. The benefit was most pronounced in patients who converted from an established immunosuppressive regimen to sirolimus. Given the risk of mortality, however, the use of this drug does not seem warranted for most patients with kidney transplant. Further research is needed to determine if different populations, such as those at high risk of cancer, might benefit from sirolimus.
It’s not at all unusual for a drug to both treat and cause cancer. I’m on methotrexate for an autoimmune disease. It is used as a chemotherapy drug, an immune suppressant, and it also increases the risk for certain cancers. I’m in this forum because I’m looking for alternatives to conventional drugs like methotrexate, not because I want to expand my lifespan. I think a long lifespan is over-rated, especially if you feel like shit most days both because of your disease and the side-effects of the drugs you’ve been prescribed to control it. Every doc I’ve talked to about alternative drugs gets glassy-eyed and gives me the ‘lecture’: methotrexate is a safe, well-studied drug we’ve been using for 50 years and we know what to expect from it. In 50 years little to no progress has been made in autoimmune disease cure or treatment. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that autoimmune disease largely effects women and is not directly ‘fatal’ and so is dismissed and ignored as simply an unfortunate quality-of-life issue. I’m willing to self-experiment with Rapa as a potential immune modulator with more positive than negative side effects. I have nothing to lose. Looking forward to starting my trial and reporting back.
Agree. While Rapamycin may extend healthspan and lifespan on average, it’s no panacea. People will still be dying of something. Hopefully later than they otherwise would!
And from what we do know about this case, let’s look at the timeline.
He has what seems to be a very stable nodule in his lung for over 20 years Off of rapamycin. He then introduces rapa into the equation, and during That Time period this lesion is no longer stable , and in fact takes on aggressive cancer behavior.
In the absence of any good study on cancer prevention in humans, this timeline is concerning.
Re the randomness of cancer… The reason I stayed with this topic is because a friend was diagnosed with glioblastoma last year, at 59 y.o. Super fit, great diet, light drinker, non-smoker, works out, does yoga, meditates, is positive, successful, engaged in life, thoughtful, wildly popular, has two wonderful grown sons who bring him much joy… and the diagnosis hit our friend group like a shockwave; of all people, why him? Of all people. Cancer is random. And if you live long enough you’ll probably get some version of it. Not a big topic in the African country I live in because the lifespan here is 64, up from 57 at last census.