I first read about it in THE YOUTH PILL (2010) by David Stipp. Then on NPR’s Saturday RADIO LAB. —John
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Looks like a good book… had not heard of it before:
“The study was part of the National Institute on Aging’s Interventions Testing Program, or ITP, which had been quietly testing possible anti-aging agents since 2003. The program was designed to take the anti-aging quest to a new level of rigor—each compound investigated under its auspices is vetted with life-span studies in mice conducted in parallel at three of the nation’s top gerontology labs. Thus, the ITP’s rapamycin discovery conferred unprecedented believability on the idea that it’s possible to extend life span with a drug.
The testing in triplicate was especially fortuitous in the case of rapamycin, for if the drug’s effect had been reported by a single lab it would likely have been dismissed as a bizarre fluke. Rapamycin was found to extend life span in mice that were started on the drug at twenty months of age—roughly equivalent to a person about sixty years of age.
“Even good, old, reliable CR has rarely produced signs of extended life span in mice when initiated after eighteen months of age. Indeed, in one study, rodents’ lives were actually shortened when they were put on CR at such advanced ages. Before the ITP’s rapamycin study came out, it would have been very hard to find gerontologists willing to bet that a drug could significantly boost longevity when initiated in mammals so close to the ends of their lives. And after decades of waiting for such a development, many of the field’s veterans had little hope that it would occur during their lifetimes—much less while they were still young enough to have a reasonable hope of personally benefiting from it.”
…
“Let’s step back here and view the big picture on TOR and aging that was rapidly coming into focus. As a key nexus between nutrient intake and growth, TOR is well positioned in cells’ web of metabolic pathways to do what needs to be done when starvation looms. Topping TOR’s to-do list in lean times is curtailing protein production. That both conserves scarce building materials and cuts cells’ energy needs, because manufacturing proteins is one of their most demanding processes. It also frees up resources for use by repair and maintenance systems that underlie the stress response, which is activated when TOR is suppressed, hardening cells against toxic chemicals and other insults.”
…
“Here’s another benefit of scaling back protein production: It reduces the amount of defective proteins in cells, just as shutting down a car-manufacturing plant curtails its occasional output of lemons. This matters more than you might think. Defective proteins can form toxic aggregates that cells’ waste treatment systems can’t handle. Indeed, the accumulation of harmful crud in cells has long been thought to play a major role in aging. It’s also thought to underlie the massive neuronal die-offs of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. (Which brings us to an aside on English poet/critic William Empson. Whenever I hear about the crud theory of aging, I find an incantatory line from his 1940 poem “Missing Dates” echoing through my mind: “The waste remains, the waste remains and kills”—yet more evidence, I suppose, that poets are the antennae of the race.)”
Excerpt From
The Youth Pill
David Stipp
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For me it was this article A Rapamycin Resurgence: An MD Moves the Needle on his ME/CFS - Health Rising.
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After reading Dr. Green’s website I knew that I had to get on rapamycin. I told my cardiologist, “it’s supposed to lower the risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s, and heart disease. I can’t wait anymore”. He didn’t say anything, just looked at me. Funny thing now is that he hasn’t asked me anything about it. I would expect that he’d be curious.
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Matt Kaeberlein was already discussing a lot in PATH 517 in classes I sat on in. But I only found out I could get it through Genesis Lung, who pointed me to dropship.md in 2019 (he often only did 1mg/week for a while, and then I increased my dose beyond his conservative doses).
In his classes I also discovered that protein restriction was pro-longevity (which I didn’t know before). Obvs that made me more pro-vegetarian than ever before (though he likes the taste of meat)
[at that time, I wasn’t super-enthused because I thought I was doing CR, but then I took my basal metabolic rate and it was 1150 calories/day which DEFINITELY makes my calorie intake not-CR so then I realized I really needed to do CR]
I ordered my first 100 1mg rapamycin pills in March 2019, and then 400 1mg pills in November 2019. 400 1mg pills in June 2020. 845 1mg pills on May 2021 (with 1/4 of the pills for someone else). Then 400 1mg pills from Kachhela on October 2022.
I ordered my first metformin in March 2018. And then my 2 giant stacks of 1000 pills each in March 2019 (which I have not exhausted in 2023).
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No problem getting these numbers of tablets through US customs it sounds like… is that correct?
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While following the Metformin rabbit trail, I listened to Matt Kaeberlein being interviewed by Peter Attia. Peter was interviewing both Nir Barzilai and Matt K. re: Metformin and Rapamycin. I immediately sourced some Metformin from India and began digging into Rapamycin, listening to several podcasts, reading this forum and eventually found a good functional doctor in my state of Colorado who uses Rapamycin in her practice. I’ve since replaced Metformin in my stack with Berberine.
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I first started getting interested in it around 2009 or so after reading some of the first articles Blagosklonny wrote about the role of mTOR in aging. I then got more interested throughout the years particularly around 2015 after doing a lot of research on rapamycin and mTOR. I already started modifying my diet to increase autophagy and reduce mTOR some 15 years ago.
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I’d known about it for years but associated it with charlatanism since I consider its most renowned promoters on youtube and the like to be charlatans. I will not mention any names.
But then I saw a post on another forum that intrigued me. I cyberstalked this particular poster and that led me here. A few days later I ordered some. I will consult with the vet next week and start my 12.75 year old dog on it. She’s about 24 kg, on Carprofen now, with her breed’s life expectancy being 10-12 years. I’ll see how it goes with her before I start taking it myself.
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Attia. I’ve followed him for some time. He got me to try Keto, and then I found out he quit Keto so I quit. He got me to try metformin, then he quit so I quit (plus I hated it). I kept hearing about Rapa, but didn’t think twice about some crazy experimental drug that I couldn’t get anyway. Then i heard M. Kaeberlein’s story about Rapa. I hunted down a way to start, and then I found this group. I’m glad this group is here.
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I first heard about rapamycin through Age Reversal Forum. Approx 4-5 years ago.
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First heard about it from Dr. Stanfield, then read about it again in Dr. Attia’s book and was convinced.
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I got into longevity from hearing David Sinclair on podcasts, but I branched out into following other researchers on Twitter. Dr. Blagosklonny’s theory of hyperfunction was the first time I’d heard anyone put forward such a simple and logical theory of why aging happens AND it just so happened to have an already available drug that could counteract it. I watched other people take rapamycin on Twitter for about 2 years and became more convinced after hearing Matt Kaeberlein talk about his personal experiences with rapamycin and also the dog aging project. Finding this website helped me take the plunge into ordering some rapamycin from India (I’ve done lots of gray market pharma orders over the years for hair growth experiments that never panned out, but those were all ingredients for topical brews).
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Dr. Sinclair and Dr. Stanfield recommend it and got me interested. I then researched it and found this forum. After reading the posts here, I took the plunge and am glad I did. It’s changed my life for the better! 
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