A lot of folks here seemed to first hear of rapamycin through Peter Attia’s podcast, David Sinclair’s book Lifespan, or a specific scientific paper. I want to hear your origin stories.
What was your lightbulb moment when you finally understood and wanted to try rapamycin?
How did you first become rapa-“pilled”? (no pun intended)
I first came across rapamycin while researching metformin. I heard Vitalik talk about taking metformin and how he thought it was a 50-50 chance of extending your life, so may as well give it a shot.
After some basic Googling, I came across Peter Attia’s appearance on the Tim Ferriss Podcast where he explained why he was more bullish on rapa than metformin. That led me to read the mice studies and eventually to this forum!
For me it was the Blagosklonny article 3 years ago… looking at longevity information online:
Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6814615/
"If you wait until you are ready, it is almost certainly too late.”
I decided not to wait! Been on it 2.5 years… no regrets. All better…biological age 15 to 20 years younger than chronological age. Lifting higher weights, skin improved… memory amazing… constant euphoria.
I first heard about it from David Sinclair book, but I was bummed out because it had so many side effects, as David mentioned. The lightbulb moment was seeing Peter Attia mentioning he was taking it weekly, avoiding or reducing said side effects.
I saw someone post about Rapamycin on a Reddit longevity subreddit (I think it might have been @desertshores or @Krister_Kauppi ), I cyber-stalked them until I found this forum, and then read everything I could here about Rapamycin. Seemed a good idea to start experimenting with Rapamycin myself.
I had been hearing about the early mouse studies on rapamycin in the mid, to late 2000s and later, so at some point I added a “google alert” for rapamycin (I do this for any interesting compound that is in the longevity space). But all the negative news around immune suppression tempered my enthusiasm. Sometime after 2010 (maybe around 2014) I saw an article that quoted Matt Kaeberlein saying that perhaps by dosing weekly rather than continuously would get around the immune supression issue. Then in 2019 I saw the MensHealth article come up in my google alerts and after reading it and doing some more research decided I had to try it - so started taking rapamycin soon after that article.
Exactly… after reading Blagosklonny…I found that Men’s Health article three different aged men and each had a rapamycin story.
That definitely clinched it for me.
Sent both articles to my personal physician. We discussed it . . no real bad side effects… just stop using if it doesn’t work. I was prescribed rapamycin one month later.
I first heard it from Peter Attia. I came to him wanting to learn more about fasting, and got hooked on his podcasts about rapamycin.
I first heard about it from Sinclairs Lifespan. However, it was Dr. Stanfield who led me here. And all of you wonderful folk here clinched the deal.
A friend of mine did a podcast about rapamycin and his experience taking it in December of ‘22 and that got me interested in learning more. It seemed quite serendipitous.
That’s a good quote to live by!
Was your biological age significantly younger before you started rapa due to a healthy lifestyle? Or did you see most your gains after taking rapa?
Wow, that’s early! I love the google alert trick.
What keywords are your google alerts set to right now? Could be an interesting predictor of moonshots that will go more mainstream in 2-5 years 
Did you have an issue convincing your doctor to write the Rx? Sounds like they were chill and open-minded (hard to find!)
I tried to convince multiple doctors to write an Rx for metformin, but no success yet. I imagine it would be 10x harder with rapa.
Which podcast if you don’t mind me asking? Would love to check it out!
No I was not healthier before Rapamycin - my Levine Biological age was 3 years older at age 61 years I was told I was biological age of 64.
After being on rapamycin for 1 to 1.5 years my TruAge methylation test said I was 50 years when I was actually 63 years . It blew away the CEO of the company - a Stanford age researcher - Yelena Budovskaya - nobody tested that much younger - when I told them I was on rapamycin - they said it is true I am 13 years younger… due to rapamycin.
My Glycan blood test said I was 37 years. I have just taken the TruAge blood test for the age competition… and will have that back in 2-3 weeks. Lets see what they say - consistently 15 years or more younger on biological tests spit and blood.
I am quite open to experimentation. I had rapamycin on my list for about 6 months before i took my first dose. I have a number of tools for autophagy and am looking at whether or not to combine them. I think rapa plus fasting is good. Probably adding melatonin at night is good but i do that a lot anyway. I am not so sure about adding hif 1 alpha, but i may try this.
I have known my doctor since he was in medical school. He and I have a great relationship doctor and friend. He is there to assist me in my health and offer his best knowledge. So if I have research and I want to try different health -or life span medications - TRT, rapamycin, metformin, acarbose, doxycycline, minoxodil, finasteride, tadalafil- if I can show it is reasonably safe, and can contribute to my overall health/life span - he is onboard to let me try.
We monitor the medications with 3-4 month full blood tests. We have been on this journey for 4-years… he looks at before images of me and blood tests of 4-years ago and sees me now. Says I am a medical miracle case. Happy for my amazing physical fitness and internal health.
Before finding my current physician - I had for years two other so-so doctors. Good at what they did - treat me when I was ill (strep throat - annual physical) - did not care too much about what I was looking for… - I mentioned TRT – you don’t need that - you are healthy - you are good. Had to keep looking. I got very lucky and now we both are having a great patient - doctor relationship.
Medical miracle, medical anomaly, whatever it is, it’s great to see and read of your results. Someone could make an interesting Netflix about your longevity story.
We have discussed in the past how we get our longevity information. Here is my list of google alerts related to longevity: What sources do you use to make your personal longevity decisions - #18 by RapAdmin
