I have recently started purifying rapamycin tablets and the dosing the extracted rapamycin sublingually,
Last night I sat down and looked at my Apple Health results and noticed something strange with my VO2max graph.
For months it has stayed at the same level (low, probably due to the amount of metformin I take).
Has anyone seen this before ?
Can anyone please explain what’s going on ?
It almost looks like rapamycin may be countering metformin suppression of VO2max
Could it be used as surrogate biomarker for mTor inhibition ?
Did you adjust any other parameters in your routine? Change your metformin dosing? Work out more?
I know you described your protocol for making the sublingual rapamycin here: Sublingual Rapamycin
But you are, quite possibly, the first person to do this so we really have no benchmarks as to the effectiveness of this approach or protocol. It would be really interesting to get some blood sirolimus tests done to see how much is getting into your bloodstream. How to get a Rapamycin (sirolimus) Blood Level Test
There are some other people here in our forums who I think have found a company that provides this blood sirolimus test in the UK.
I can’t say I’ve seen any responses like this on V02Max before… unless someone wants to report it now in this thread.
The possibilities of different doses and the way we take them, grapefruit juice, olive oil, etc are endless Too bad we don’t have a way of instantaneous way of measuring all of our parameters like we do with glucose monitoring.
I was even thinking that maybe we could even put the mTOR1C rebound effect to good use by working out when it is highest.
No, nothing has changed (exercise or metformin-wise) apart from my starting rapamycin dosing sublingually.
In the past I have regularly taken rapamycin orally with grapefruit juice and never seen this type of effect before.
I am very tempted to continue dosing to see how high my VO2max will go, then do a washout period to see if VO2max falls and then start dosing again.
John, can you please share your weekly exercise routine? Have you noticed any benefits from a functional standpoint? For example, if you’re a cycler have you noticed that your average pace or power (e.g. wattage) has gone up during this period, or if you’re a runner has your time/per mile gone down, etc.?
I’m sure my exercise regime is quite pathetic compared to some on here.
I used to run on a treadmill for 15-20 minutes at 12km/hour… before I found out out that my CGM was showing glucose spiking.
Nowadays my exercising is even more modest. I just go for fast walks (~6.6km/hour) for 10 min ending with a quick run up a hill at the end. I do this 2-3 times a day, after meals.
….and No, I haven’t noticed any benefits or changes in performance.
Well John, on the bright side, your aphthous ulcers (aka canker sores) indicate that your sublingual method is delivering the rapa payload. As RapAdmin suggests, it would be very useful to take a blood test measurement of how much rapa is present in your blood from your experiments.
Apple Health VO2max tracking isn’t turned on by default and Apple uses the name “Cardio Fitness” to find VO2max. If you are using an Apple watch to capture your data it may fluctuate a little and its not really targeting accurate readings.
If you are using any new device it takes quite a few exercises to calibrate a solid reading. You may simply be getting fitter and stronger with those 3x daily up hill runs?
The gold standard for VO2 max tests are typically performed in a laboratory and involve running on a treadmill. The speed of the treadmill increases gradually until you reach the intensity at which maximum oxygen consumption rate is achieved.
Currently I use a Garmin Forerunner 955 with a Garmin HRM-Pro heart rate monitor. It applies the Cooper Method for calculation. It’s not perfect but it is well respected by thousands of serious athletes.
Yes you right, I know that an apple watch only gives a pseudo measurement of VO2max, but I’ve got months worth of data using the same device and with the same exercise and meds protocol, so everything has been constant for at least 6 months. I just find it very strange that my VO2max takes off, the day after I started dosing rapamycin.
I think the best way to go forward, is to carry on dosing rapamycin (next dose this Friday) to see how much higher my VO2max will go, and to satisfy my curiosity.
I’ll then stop dosing and see if my VO2max falls, if it drops back to its previous level, then I think it must be the rapamycin.
I can then see if I can ‘switch it’ back on again by restarting dosing.
I’ve just purchased a smartwatch that measures Vo2 Max and did a lot of research on these devices. The Apple and Garmin smartwatches that measure Vo2Max are reasonably accurate… I think about +/- 4%, so good enough to get a good trend line.
I’m going to dose rapamycin tomorrow, see how the VO2 max looks over the weekend, then start a ‘washout’ starting Monday of next week.
P.S I’ve had a rethink since I posted the above.
I’m going to dose 2mg purified rapamycin today to see if the VO2max rises from its plateau.
If it does so, then maybe the change in VO2max is a graduated response to the rapamycin.
After the 2mg dose has run its course, rather than go to a nil dose (as a ‘washout’), I’m thinking I may drop down to a 0.5mg dose ?
I just cross- checked my Apple Watch measurements with my rapamune dates (not sublingual) and if anything, it goes slightly down on the (next) day(s) of taking it (but only minimally so) and it may just be that on the day of , and the day after, I usually feel tired and don’t exercise . Also still on a low dose (4 mg) but will keep track now and inform should I see any relevant trend
I just wanted to create a similar topic when I stumbled upon this one. I normally take 4mg Rapamycin + gfj once every week but I suddenly got stomatitis (sore mouth) so I decided to skip a dose and got a huge sudden boost in my cycling performance. FTP estimate was hovering around 270W recently (slightly down from 279W) but it suddenly jumped 307W and I felt great on the bike previous longest ride was 4h @ 138W but last weekend it was almost 5.5h @ 200W and I wasn’t even that tired (but it was getting cold and dark). The day before yesterday I took rapamycin again and today I felt slow as always.
Do you have data, power numbers? I’m going to skip my next dose again but it won’t be until at least another week before I can compare to see if rapamycin suppresses endurance performance although I think we can already safely say that rapamycin does not inhibit endurance adaptations
I’m only referring to my routine zone 2 training so no vo2max measurement. Keeping it simple though, it is how far can I go in exactly 30 minutes making sure I stay in zone two. Whilst on Rapa, I have never managed to push my personal best forwards. When on a Rapa holiday, on both occasions, I have improved by 10-12% over the space of a few weeks (so it isn’t an instant jump).
Back on the Rapa again and there is no improvement at all and generally some slippage backwards.
(I have never felt it impacting strength as have often managed personal bests here whilst taking Rapa).
I feel that Rapa is like a level up on the resistance from an aerobic point of view, and thus extra exercise, as well as being pure exercise for the immune system.
That is my subjective feeling on Rapa, and how I explain it in layman’s terms to my friends.
Took my dose Monday morning (4mg+gfj), Monday evening’s training was still pretty good, Wednesday sucked but today already felt better, with much higher power and NP/heart rate. This week was supposed to be a recovery week but next week regular training will commence. I think I will take a brief rapamycin break and see what happens.
Apologies for the late/slow update, I’m just going through some personal problems at the moment.
I’ve had to plot out the VO2max data on graph paper as Apple Health only allows ‘narrow’ day views or ‘averaged’ week views so it’s hard to get a proper view of the data.
The pencil arrows mark a treatment, with details shown on yellow post-it notes, green post-it notes denote new VO2max levels.
Since December the Rapamycin-VO2max system seems to have lost sensitivity, I’ve tried a month long holiday from Rapamycin, with no success. Now I’m trying a month long holiday from the rest of the meds (including metformin), but may have to start them up soon as my blood pressure is increasing, although that may be due to stress.
, but will just have to be resourceful with what I’ve got.
