I would use a CGM to see what the patterns are.
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Depending on who you talk to an a1c of 5.9 is right at the top of normal range or "pre-diabetic ". Yes, a CGM is probably a good idea.
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Did he say this somewhere? If so I wonder what he bases it on. You’re the only one I have seen report on the blood glucose increasing effects going away after taking it for long.
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Could you give more details here? Did you experience worsening of blood glucose initially with rapamycin but it went away after taking it for a while? If yes, how long did it take to get back to normal?
You said your A1C is high. What was it before starting rapamycin?
I am one of the most infrequent users of Rapamycin. I have taken it I think 4 times over a period of a year, but not regularly. I wore a CGM when taking it and posted the charts into this forum so you can see. It is not 100% certain from the charts.
My HbA1c is normally around 4.5% (although it has been as low as 4.18%) and although I do weekly blood tests that would not necessarily pick up that much from rapamycin as I don’t have it frequently enough.
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I originally saw a comment by Mikhail V. Blagosklonny, MD, PhD on his Twitter feed many months ago, but I am not able to view the feed back that far.
My own experience was that when I started rapamycin, unlike most people, I started with high doses of 20mg with GFJ. That raised my fasting glucose to ~102 -110 which disturbed me. After titrating down to 5-10 mg/week my fasting glucose levels fell below 100 once again.
In any case, I don’t think rapamycin should raise anyone’s glucose levels significantly.
Most studies were done with transplant patients who were taking high doses
Here are two papers discussing the effect. Sorry if they have been posted before.
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That’s a very low HbA1c. Has it always been this low or do you attribute it to some specific diet or supplement?
I copy below my HbA1c starting in May 2021 then jumping to 2022 initially 4 weekly then moving weekly apart from holidays. Not all labs give me HbA1c as part of the basic package.
As you can see there is a 4.18% in the middle of it, but it is settling around the 4.5% mark.
There is an issue about HbA1c that some labs measure both aldimine and ketoamine, some only measure ketoamine. It tends to be ion chromatography that measures both and immunoflourescence that measures the irreversible element. I think the lab that gave me 4.18% was only measuring ketoamine, but it is hard to find out from the labs what they do as they often don’t know themselves.
Sadly I don’t have my measurements prior to 2021 and in May 2021 I had already dropped my weight from 130kg to 85kg.
My guess is that my HbA1c was quite a bit higher in the past.
I am 63 and an HbA1c of 4.5 for someone of my age is quite unusual. I am running a broader protocol which is intended to improve gene expression (both at the transcription and translation level). If you consider my CGM records from January 2022 to those in 2023 my Glucose was previously peaking around 10mmol/L and now peaks at 8mmol/L which is good because it does not excite the pathway for over 8mmol/L which I think is innositol, but it is not easy to look up.
I think the improvement in glucose processing arises from improving pancreatic function (gene expression). However, I think there are two other factors
a) I megadose on Melatonin from time to time (quite frequently really) which drives down blood glucose
b) I am from time to time a binge drinker although I stopped after last Sunday because on Monday I got quite a high CK value in the blood test I gave the sample for on the previous Thursday.
I am likely to revert to drinking, but I did another blood test yesterday and will do another next week. If I go out to dinner with any of my family I am likely to have another drink although I may not. Hence I may get an idea if HbA1c goes up with less alcohol.
Here is the HbA1c results (some converted from mmol/mol)
4.9 4.8 4.9 4.3 5 tested on second day 4.38 cvt 4.8 cvt 4.6 -> 4.7 -> 4.5 4.18 night time melatonin drives this down ->5.3 5.4 follows glucose by 2 hours 4.9 5.1 4.9 5 4.9 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.3 5 ->4.7 ->4.5 ->4.6 ->4.4 ->4.6 4.4279 ->4.6 ->4.6 4.5556 ->4.6 4.4618 ->4.6 4.4296 4.4468 4.5189
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weight gain on rapamycin: where is the research? Most of user experiences that I read mentioning losing some fat?
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I don’t know why you are asking me.
I weighed about 130 kg in August 2022
I weighed about 85 kg in May 2021
In 2022 I first took some Rapamycin.
I have no view as to whether Rapamycin affects weight. I think it makes the metabolism more efficient whatever effect that has.
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The research in mice suggests a slight weight loss, the research in humans is mixed but generally not a significant difference one way or another. The PEARL Rapamycin study is tracking visceral fat as one of the key outcomes they are hoping to see a difference in, as I think one of the study designers said the most significant change he saw in one (unpublished) study on rats was change in visceral fat - so we’ll have those results in a year or two perhaps.
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Thanks for the info. This is the first time I hear someone mention melatonin mega doses as a potentially lowering blood glucose.
I finally got my blood work done after a year on rapamycin. My A1c was 5.3 before starting and 5.2 now. So basically the same.
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I had an experimental result when I was using time release melatonin (of my own manufacture in the sense of making it time release) and wearing a CGM and I saw a drop in blood sugar.
However, it is a known effect of melatonin.
I only take Melatonin during sleep periods. It appears that if you take it during the day (or more so with food) it undermines the glucose processing systems. I tend to take it between 3am and 6am.
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Nice. What dose were you taking when you notice that effect?
Its a while ago, but it was probably only a 10mg dose as I cannot stuff more pills into a type 2 capsule (It could have been 5mg, but that is unlikely). I use a type 2 in a type 1 in a type 00 in a type 00 in a type 000 to give a reasonable delay before the capsule(s) is(are) destroyed by stomach acid. I do have the records, but it would take a small amount of work to put this together and the principle is the thing.
The glucose lowering effects of melatonin and alcohol are both reasonably well know. Various people freak out about using melatonin and alcohol at the same time and I have not actually done this directly although I have taken melatonin during the night when some alcohol may have remained in my system. I find melatonin clears up the residual effects of hangovers when pantethine has not cleared everything.
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Am curious about biting nails when blood sugar goes up. Is that a common phenomena? Can you recommend a blood sugar monitor? I wasn’t sure I could trust the one I had briefly used. Thanks for any info. Greg
I have used Dexcom G6 and G7 as well as Freestyle Libre 2. The Libre 2 is a nuisance because if you forget to get a reading you lose data. They are all allowed to be slightly inaccurate and I cannot say much about how accurate they are. Some people say G6 is more reliable than G7, but G7 is smaller and perhaps easier to keep in situ.
When my blood sugar fluctuates I can’t stop biting my nails. I assume it’s because fluctuating blood sugar triggers stress hormones.