Dr. Blagosklonny's Cancer

Rapamycin does not prevent anything, just delays it. We will all miss him, many consider him the Godfather of Longevity.

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He already knew he had lung cancer when that paper got published. I hope it’s true but maybe it is just wishful thinking

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I don’t think it means anything or influences his work or credibility. Through it’s mTOR inhibitory activities, rapamycin should mainly slow down the growth of already existing cancer and would have a smaller and more indirect effect on preventing it from appearing in the first place. Even though rapamycin likely indirectly prevents cancer, nothing can completely prevent cancer. In the end, whether you get cancer or not is still very much of a lottery where you can increase or decrease your odds of winning but cannot control the outcome completely.

This information has no influence on my trust in Blagosklonny and his writings on rapamycin.

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Agree this will not influence his credibility. He is a pioneer. In the same way as Dr. Sehgal who we all know and respect. He also survived his coloncancer quite many years. He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian Society of Organ Transplantation in 1997. He was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer in 1998. His physician treated him with Rapamune for liver metastasis, and he was pleased that it had extended his life. Ultimately, he passed away in 2003 after 40 years of active research in rapamycin.

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I understand that he started Rapamycin many years after his benign growth became cancerous or he had any knowledge that it became cancerous (he didn’t watch it for 20+ years).

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How exactly does a benign growth become cancerous? Doesn’t that mean it is not benign? It seems that to have a benign tumor turn into a malignant one is incredibly rare. Is it possible that something he did turned his tumor malignant?

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Matt Kaeberlein says (on the RadioLab podcast… “The Dirty Drug and the Ice Cream Tub” - Google and listen the story is crazy) if you take rapamycin and you don’t have cancer you won’t get it. It appears that Dr. B had cancer already and took rapamycin. If you already have cancer rapamycin will reverse it some.

Matt Kaeberlein also says that if you take the rapamycin you can reverse some of the chronic disease, (cancer), so it sounds like Dr. B got a 2 decade – 20 year pause - benefit even though he already had the cancer.

I don’t see anything confusing at this at all. The same thing is said by Matt Kaeberlein about dementia. If you don’t have it you won’t get it. But, if you already start to have dementia You can reverse some of it, but that’s not the same as never getting it.

For what it’s worth according to Matt.

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It could be misdiagnosed to start with. It was 1991 and most likely in Russia. I wouldn’t be surprised that it was simply misdiagnosed. However, a friend of mine, an MD, died from brain cancer 3 years ago - his benign tumor was found 10 years ago. Somehow it changed into a full blown cancer.

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Benign is still extra crap in your body and cells.(… this extra stuff) leads to cancer and other chronic diseases. On the RadioLab Dirty Drug podcast.

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Was he taking Rapamycin too?

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No, he wasn’t on Rapamycin.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, I highly doubt rapamycin can prevent cancer and dementia. I don’t think there is any extraordinary evidence for that.

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If you believe that cancer is an aging disease, and Rapamycin can delay aging, therefore it, logically, also can delay cancer. Delaying may not be equal to preventing, but it comes pretty close, especially in older population.

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Matt Kaeberlein is probably the most cautious person in making any kind of claims about anything scientifically unless he absolutely knows. He by far is the most knowledagable researcher of rapamycin and its benefits .

In my book he’s probably the most respected person in researching rapamycin and what it can do. He does not make wild claims and is conservative in views… not afraid to challenge others in science. Pretty strong believer as a user himself.

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Come on… the poor health of Russians is certainly not from eating animal fats - it’s the heavy smoking and drinking, as well as air and water pollution.

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Of course, but he was refering to mice. And didn’t mention cancer.

image

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It’s a tale of mice and men. We have assumed that what holds true for mice and all the other model organisms will hold true for us. I still believe that, but there is that little voice that says… What if?

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We have assumed that, but it is unlikely to be the case for complex things.

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Rapamycin doesn’t prevent cancer. The person that discovered it died of prostate cancer if memory serves. Colon cancer. I doubt Matt would speak this rashly today but here he is in the podcast Agetron references. Suren died of cancer in January 2003. They are speculating it is because he stopped taking rapamycin in 2002 to see if it was helping. Hard to fathom giving that all of us have cancer cells in our body. We just don’t develop cancer because the immune system kills them.

MATT KAEBERLEIN: And there’s tons of data in mice that rapamycin can improve cognitive aging in mice. Starting rapamycin before the decline starts prevents the decline, and starting rapamycin after the decline starts partially reverses the decline.

AVIR MITRA: So you’re saying that rapamycin reverses Alzheimer’s in mice?

MATT KAEBERLEIN: That’s right.

AVIR MITRA: Wow.

And it’s not just Alzheimer’s. It’s, like, every marker of aging. It’s other diseases, too, like heart attacks, strokes and cancer, which kind of brings us back to Suren. Like, he was given six months in 1998, and now it’s 2002.

LATIF NASSER: Oh, wow, so, like, almost the five-year mark.

AVIR MITRA: Yeah.

AJAI SEHGAL: Five years when he was supposed to have been dead.

AVIR MITRA: He’s still taking rapamycin, and he’s still alive. And so, yeah, maybe some of that anti-aging stuff is happening in Suren’s body.

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Colon cancer was what killed Seghal

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