I have been running a large number of N=1 tests basically to develop my own protocol for improving the health of my cells. I have made quite a bit of progress with this and on Sunday for the first time I took 2mg of Rapamycin and have been asked to post here my experiences. For much of this year, but not when I went on holiday I have been doing weekly blood work. Hence I have some results from 31st August 2022 and 7th September 2022.
I am male, aged 62 and weigh around 85kg being 1.88m tall. I am in the UK so my units are likely to be different to those people use in the USA. I run quite a complex protocol which I have run in various guises over the past few years. I weighed about 130kg in August 2020, but had reduced my weight to 85kg in May 2021.
My plan with Rapamycin if I take it again is to take it every 4 weeks. That is because the half life is 3 days and I wish to have it completely out of my system for a good period of time.
My view as to the circadian cycle is that autophagy and mitophagy is best planned for the night and reconstruction during the day.
My current eating cycle is to have breakfast about 8am and have lunch about 12-1pm and then not to eat anything particularly until the next day. Hence I was looking for Rapamycin to increase the overnight autophagy.
This paper indicates that autophagy may itself impact on the circadian cycle
I took my Rapamycin at 6.40am on Sunday morning (BST).
That night I had difficulty getting to sleep (which is not normally the situation) which was symptomatic of a reduction in endogenous melatonin. This difficulty reduced over the next two days. It was initially similar to the effect of a cyclooxygenase-1 inhibitor such as Aspririn. However, the effects of Aspirin tend to last about 36 hours. Hence it was clearly a different effect.
I assume that was the interplay between a high level of autophagy and the circadian cycle as indicated in that paper. My sleep on the Wednesday night had got back to something similar to the night before I took Rapamycin.
As a result of my broader protocol I have been having a certain amount of hair regrowth (and various other cellular changes). Hence I cannot tell whether Rapamycin has affected this or not. The process continues gradually.
Looking at the blood biomarkers comparing 31/8 to 7/9
Haemoglobin g/l at 144 before and 150 afterwards with HCT at 0.4 both and RCC 4.52 to 4.73 (10^^9.l) have not shifted significantly. They are within the earlier ranges.
MCV at 94 from 97 is an improvement. However, I have been working on this as I did get into a bit of a mess with an MCV of 101.5 earlier this year. I don’t think Rapamycin affected this.
White Cell count was something I was particularly interested in. It went from 3 to 3.5. A week I would think is too short a period to really measure this over, but I could conclude that it didn’t do any harm as yet. Lymphocytes went from 24% to 27%. Beyond saying there is no harm (which is good if that is the case) I am not sure there is a solid trend. I will find out in the future.
Creatinine went down from 90 umol/L to 76. This is a particularly hard value to get reliable results for as blood metabolises before being tested and hence the value is affected by how long it takes before the sample is tested. I have had a lower value this year, however.
If Kidney function is improved by getting a reduction in full or partial senescence as a result of Rapamycin improving differentiation through improved acetylation of the histone then I would expect to see a gradual improvement here. However, I got a 66 and a 68 in July so I don’t see too much here.
Bilirubin went up from 7 to 9 umol/L. I don’t think that was Rapamycin.
ALP 75->65 IU/L AST 22->23 IU/L ALT 17->17 IU/L
CK dropped substantially from 138 IU/L to 88 IU/L. That may mean something as a consequence of Rapamycin and I would be interested in any ideas.
Albumin was 38->40 g/L - not significant.
Triglyerides went from 1.2 mmol/L to 1.4 mmolL and Cholesterol (total 5.07->5.51 mmol/L and LDL 2.67->3.1 mmol/L) went up. That I think is because of a change in my diet.
HbA1c went from 27.7->25.9 (which at a guess is about 4.7% → 4.5% ish). It is too short a period for Rapamycin to have caused this.
Iron dropped from 20 umol/L to 10 umol/L. I wonder if this was a testing error.
CRP went from 0.3 mg/L (0.03 mg/dL) to 0.2 mg/L. I think that is a reporting issue as my CRP is normally below the sensitivity of the hsCRP test. I am trying to get a coherent answer from the Lab here.
Testosterone went up from 17.34 nmol/L to 21.6 nmol/L. I cannot see why Rapamycin would have affected this that much, but if it is not a testing artifact then it seems significant.
25OHD went up from 108 nmol/L to 184. That was because I was taking some 25OHD as well as Cholecalciferol. I was not happy with 108 nmol/L.
Sadly AFAIK there is no mechanism for assessing levels of autophagy and any benefits are seen in the long term. My worry about Rapamycin was any negative impact on White Cell Count. I am doing another test next week and am keeping an eye on this as it is one of my biomarkers that is a bit out of kilter.
However, from these so far I see no down side.