I’m interested in people’s thoughts on a recent study in mice that showed those with shorter telomeres saw accelerated aging with rapamycin.
This may not translate to humans and it was just one study so I’m not reading too much into it. I’m currently on rapamycin 5mg a week. Genetics tests showed shorter telomeres but I’ve never had any symptoms associated with that. I’m just genuinely curious what affects there could be in this area, both positive and negative.
Except from study:
An mTOR inhibitor is rapamycin, a drug that prolongs life in yeasts, flies, worms and mice, and that significantly reduces the incidence of cancer in mice with normal telomeres.
The researchers wanted to test whether rapamycin could also extend the life of mice with short telomeres, but they found that the opposite happens: they age up to 50% faster. This basic finding allowed the authors to discover that mTOR is, in fact, important for the survival of mice with short telomeres, and therefore blocking it has a negative effect.
Nature Communications. The CNIO finds that rapamycin has harmful effects when telomeres are short
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Maria Blasco’s group at the CNIO shows that an anti-ageing strategy that extends life in normal mice, the treatment with rapamycin, is harmful when mice have short telomeres
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The group addresses for the first time the connections between two of the main biochemical processes associated with ageing: the shortening of telomeres and the ability of cells to detect nutrients
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The study, published in ‘Nature Communications’, reveals thus far unknown basic aspects of one of the main molecular pathways, mTOR, involved in cancer and ageing
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The finding helps to better understand diseases such as aplastic anaemia and pulmonary fibrosis
In the past few decades, it was discovered that the rate at which we age is strongly influenced by biochemical processes that, at least in animal models, can be controlled in the laboratory. Telomere shortening is one of these processes; another one is the ability of cells to detect nutrients mediated by the mTOR protein. Researchers have been able to prolong life in many species by modifying either one of them. But what if we manipulate both? A team from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) now studied it for the first time, with unexpected results. Blocking nutrient sensing by treatment with rapamycin, an mTOR inhibitor, delays the ageing of healthy mice but, curiously, it worsens diseases and premature ageing that occur in mice with short telomeres. This finding has important implications for the treatment of diseases associated with short telomeres, but also for age-related diseases that are also associated with short telomeres. The study, done by the Telomeres and Telomerase Group headed by Maria Blasco at the CNIO, is published in Nature Communications with Iole Ferrara-Romeo as the first author.