Passing of Dr. Misha Blagoskonny

He was writing some very interesting things about how to beat cancer with a parallel use of agents instead of sequential use, to prevent the development of resistance to the drug cocktail. Unless he was missing something very fundamental about how cancer works, I’m sure he was right. In his case he was too far gone and the cancer too advanced and metastasized but in general his protocol seemed like a no brainer and it actually shocked me to read it’s not the standard of care: that a traditional oncologist will only use one agent and wait for your cancer to develop a resistance to that before introducing another.

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It could be just theoretical. If traditional protocol didn’t support it, it would be very difficult for him to even obtain the drugs without prescription or insurance coverage.

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I think he said he was able to write his own prescription. It wasn’t as though he was using fringe drugs. They were standard, but the way he combined them was unique and extremely persuasive. Did anyone else here read his cancer journal?

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It’s not allowed to write your own prescription I think. I also think that he wasn’t a practicing MD, but rather a professor and editor/publisher. I remember he asked on Tweeter if any MD would write a script for him.

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I try to cheat both as much as I can but I’m afraid I’m not succeeding :joy:

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That is sad news. I liked his hypotheses and reasonings about how rapamycin might work. RIP

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He was a brilliant man. He motivated Dr Green to take Rapamycin, and Dr Green motivated many of us to take Rapa. So we all owe it to him.

I really liked his short papers, this one in particular: From rapalogs to anti-aging formula - PMC, where he proposed a formula to slow down multiple causes of aging.

His theories will outlast him. Hyperfunctions are real. At minimum, he gave them a cool new name, and addressed a fundamental cause and/or mediator of aging pathology.

As to the field not looking good because two of its pioneers have died at a relatively normal age? That’s simply not a logical conclusion. N=2 doesn’t help prove anything. I would add that Rapamycin is unlikely to be a youth elixir – numerous people taking it clearly demonstrate that. But we all hope that it has marginally beneficial effects, anywhere between 5-10% life extension would be pretty amazing. This kind of life extension will be very hard to measure based on a few samples.

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Also something to keep in mind is that not everybody will benefit from Rapa even though overall 5-10% life extension may be possible. Some may experience no life extension benefits, some lifespans may be negatively impacted and some may actually benefit even more than 5-10%.

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Where does this information come from? I’m interested in evidence that rapamycin might shorten lifespan.

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I’m basing my statement on the following. Also I hope this doesn’t come as surprise as this subject was discussed on multiple occasions on this forum:

  1. In some individuals there are following adverse events including infections (urinary tract, upper respiratory, and skin infections and sinusitis), oral and labial pathology (aphthae, gingivitis, and herpes-like vesicles), mouth ulcers, generalized pain, headache, fever, hypertension, nausea, abdominal pain, constipation, diarrhea, urinary tract infection, peripheral oedema, anemia, arthralgia, thrombocytopenia, hypercholesterolaemia, hypertriglyceridaemia ( increase in serum triglyceride concentration of about 40% above baseline), and increased creatinine.
  2. Mice. (Of course humans are not mice but still something to be concerned about.) When you look at ITP intervention studies, some mice died sooner than the mice, which did not receive Rapa (most likely not just due to random chance) even though overall both male and female mice receiving Rapa lived longer.
  3. There is no drug that I know of that doesn’t have adverse effects in some people that doesn’t require discontinuation either temporarily or for good. For example jardiance can cause in some people severe swelling and if not discontinued in such individuals would surely lead to death. I presume Rapa is such a drug (and not a benign elixir of life) as well based on the above evidence.
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Although I think this is a helpful post I think we need to consider mechanisms when looking at side effects.

I think I am probably the person who takes the highest (taking into account GFG) dose of rapamycin at any one point, although a relatively low dose over a period of time. I think we need to consider mechanisms when looking at side effects.

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At this point it is intuition, but you may be right. It may be the case that rapa benefits come from the peak blood concentrations and not area under the curve exposure. If this is indeed a case taking a high dose less often and overall lower dose than taking it on weekly basis would be a way to minimize negatives while reaping benefits. More studies are needed, though.

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Since you doing such high doses, At what intervals are you taking RAPA nowadays? Once every couple weeks?

About every 2 months ATM

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My reasoning is that when recycling mitochondria in any one cell i would wish the cell to select more mitochondria at any one point as they should select on low ΔΨM.

Hence subsequent fission should be in a higher average ΔΨM.

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Read Alan’s rapamycin story. He had a rare inherited cardiomyopathy that seemingly should have killed him many years ago. His heath data is open to all on his site. Per a conversation 2 months ago, the cardiac condition worsened recently but he was very hesitant to undergo a dramatic, somewhat experimental cardiac muscle reduction procedure(at Mayo, I think) because of the risks of CNS complications with the pump run and anesthesia.(Always trying to blame anesthesia).Those of you who are his patients know how focused he was on prevention of Alzheimers disease and mental decline. It was a great fear of his. He might have had the procedure, though, and did not recover. He has never been shy about sharing his medical information. We will likely know the entire story soon. I so looked forward to our phone and email conversations. For those of you who did not know him, imagine if Larry David was your PCP. Alan had a low tolerance for BS. May his memory be a blessing to all of us.https://rapamycintherapy.com

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Alan Green had Apical Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, which is rarely fatal and generally considered a favorable form of the condition. You can look up the details on the condition. The claim that it should have killed him years ago is speculative and likely inaccurate. For reference, he was a board-certified pathologist, though I don’t know where he worked before starting his clinic.

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I heard him in a YT interview about rapamycin explain that the condition was causing a very steep decline in his overall health, which is what sparked his interest in longevity interventions, as he said he knew it in his bones that unless he did something drastic to reverse course, he’d be dead within 5 years. I believe this is the interview. At any rate by his own account, his heart condition was very serious, even though it had gone undetected earlier in life:

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“He knew it in his bones.” That’s an interesting phrase! I wonder if he can also tell me what his calcium levels are? :smile: I always find it interesting when people say they just “know their body.”

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I was actually paraphrasing and I apologize if that wasn’t clear — had been on the go and not as precise with my language as I ought to have been. There doesn’t seem to be anything striking though in someone realizing that he’s in a steep decline. Most people know their bodies well enough to be able to tell. He made it very clear that such had been the case, and that he had been able to arrest and partially reverse that decline through rapamycin — but it’s no miracle and it was started pretty late in life. He seemed to clearly suggest he wouldn’t have been alive without it at the time of the interview.

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