Mice and rats used in research, have had their husbandry steadily improved, (and obviously live longer than in the wild), with long lived strains developed (which didn’t even happen with humans - we didn’t develop a strain of long lived humans). And it is in these well cared for animals living in protected environments (lab environments are even more protective than free living humans), that we tested rapamycin and achieved substantial max lifespan extension on top, thus validating the efficacy of this drug. In fact, we are so attuned to avoiding the effects of poor genetics or poor hubandry, nutrition and environment, that we exclude all those limitations by insisting that only long lived rodents are used as controls, thus assuring that we are not comparing to subpar cohorts. That’s what Matt Kaeberlein’s 900 day mouse rule is all about.
And the same is true for companion animals such as dogs and cats. Veterinary science and pet care have evolved to the point where the longevity of our pets have reached new records. It is in this context that studies of longevity interventions including with rapamycin have been and are being conducted by scientists like Matt Kaeberlein on pets that share our environment.
And in general our knowledge and care for lab animals and zoos has grown dramatically in the last century where the animals are of course living incomparably longer than in the wild or in captivity compared to a bygone era. I think it’s safe to say that lab animals are cared for with greater attention to their health than the average human out there.
One thing that’s omitted here is that we DO have human data. It’s complicated by being in transplant patients, but the transplant literature is the closest thing we have to long-term human outcome data on chronic mTOR inhibition, and it’s not cited enough in my opinion in these longevity discussions. It supports a real anticancer effect. It does not cleanly support “sirolimus extends transplant patient lifespan” as a settled fact, but these are complicated transplant patients on many many medications and they are also on continuous immunosuppressive dosing, not the pulsed dosing, and they STILL have lower cancer rates. So there’s definitely a signal there in humans.
@splarme That’s certainly been my experience. I’ve been on Rapa for 6+ years and I’ve had a few where I didn’t feel my best, but I have maybe been actually sick twice.
I would like to see some anecdotal reports from people using Sirolimus who have managed to live beyond the average.
Is it too early to see this? Has anyone tried to find out?
Does anyone know how long a significant number of older people have been taking Sirolimus off label for longevity puposes, just want to get a feel for when we may see these anecdotal reports
Well, we have one in these boards that is 86 or 85 and going very strong. He’s been taking it for over five years. There’s couple other’s in their 70’s that swear by it and say they feel much younger and better than ever (could it be placebo, I don’t know).
Anybody that has been using Rapa for that long at this time is not normal. Probably doing 20 other things too and eating healthy. A great many people don’t do the sleep, eat and exercise. It’s a really tough job to figure out whether to take a drug or not and we won’t get anything at all from what we have now.
This is true. Most of us are taking a bunch of different things to have an additive effect because whether we live longer with more healthspan matters more to us than knowing which specifically helped us the most. It’s just human nature.