Hi all, have been interested in rapamycin for about 5 years or so but was waiting until I hit 30 to start taking it. I have read the pinned posts for beginners and had a browse of the forums and am trying to figure out a dosing amount and schedule.
Having bought 150 3mg tablets I am currently undecided on whether to dose at 6mg once a week (building up from 3 slowly) or whether to take a lower dose of 3mg per week until I hit maybe 40 or 50 years old then up it to 6mg.
In terms of lifestyle I do 40 minutes of aerobic exercise 6 days per week and resistance training 3 days per week. I water fast once per year for 7 days and the rest of the time follow a WFPB diet eating around 1.1g/kg of protein (trying to restrict methionine by getting it mainly from legumes) with my carbohydrate at around 70% of calories and fat around 18% (basically blue zones diet with a little more fat and protein).
I am fairly large at 188cm and 95kg so that may affect dosage. I understand there is a lack of good human data so am looking for opinion, speculation etc.
I was thinking about a sort of 8 months on 4 off approach eg taking March-May, June off, July-September, October off, Nov-Christmas, Christmas- end of Feb off. The logic of this being to allow occasional wash out periods to avoid mtor complex 2 inhibition. Also I tend to slightly bulk Christmas to Feb so a little more mtor activity to add muscle over 8-10 weeks wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Thoughts and criticism on my plan very welcome. I am fairly risk averse so not interested in much higher doses. Regarding other supplements/drugs I take for context:
Creatine 3g daily
Taurine 2g daily (1g morning and evening)
vitamin d+k2 4000iu + 200mg (in summer just k2)
dha and epa: 300mg and 150mg
b12: 1000mg weekly
finasteride 0.25mg 4x per week
What we do know is that in the mouse studies that have been done so far, the earlier you start and the higher the dose, the longer the life extension. How well that translates to people is difficult to know.
You’re a pretty big guy. If I were you I would try 3mg for a while… e.g 6 to 12 months, and see how it goes. Do pre-testing bloodwork as we sort of outline in this thread: A Friendly Biological Age Reduction Competition?
See how you do with regard to side effects. If the side effect profile is acceptable at the lower dose, I might try dosing higher… with periodic blood testing as you go up to check for side effects that you may not notice directly (e.g. blood lipid levels, fasting blood glucose levels, etc.).
Your vacation period is a fine risk reduction strategy. Keeping mTORC2 activated is a good thing to think about, though I’m not sure with weekly dosing if we inhibit mTORC2 much. Some people do take
“rapamycin vacations” periodically, but I think most people don’t. Whatever you choose is fine, everyone has different risk/reward profiles.
There is no one approach that has good evidence … so we are all guesstimating right now the best approach. We’re all experimenting - so we try things, we measure results, and we try new things and we report back here on the results. I recommend you read as much as you can in this forum and learn from other people’s experiences.
Your supplement/drug stack seems reasonable and limited (which is a good thing). Many of us here are trying to keep the supplements and longevity drugs to the ones with the most study data and the most compelling evidence for them, with Rapamycin being perhaps the one with the most evidence of all for longevity improvement. As you add more supplements and drugs there is some risk of negative side effects - as outlined in this thread: Deeply disturbing information on combining longevity supplements
Thank you for taking the time to write a really thorough reply. I regularly test HbA1c and cholesterol and have a baseline complete blood count from a few months ago but will have a look on the post you linked for other markers to track. Have read the late vs early thread and am of the opinion some light intervention now with rapamycin is right for me (3mg per week to start). The vacation thing is completely speculative but will help ease me into it and although I may not get maximum longevity benefits from it it will allow me to see how my markers/body comp responds on vs off. I also donate blood 3x per year so would prefer to be off rapamycin when I do that.
I completely get older members on the forum wanting to go for a higher dose with more guaranteed mtor suppression but I have a few years to play around with dosing. Having watched that clip you linked from Brian Kennedy I will try to keep to the less is more approach!
I’ll keep you all posted when I start on March 1st!
It is hard to really give any advice on RAPA since it very little known/proven with regards to dosing frequency, age to start etc. But based on little research I’ve done starting at 30 should be fine, though I tend to think perhaps around 35 and up could be best. Just my personal opinion btw. As far you trying I suggest the following;
Before you do the first dose stop all other supplements/substances you take two three days prior and two three days after. Gouge carefully if you have any symptoms or effects (positive or negative) during this period. This way, the effect good or bad you may feel it is traced back to RAPA , as opposed to any othe supplements you are taking.