Rapamycin Update

So that was the kickstart of my health journey and I started to look at things that could help me get things back on track again and stop this bad trend in my life . And one thing that in as a possible solution was intimate fasting , and so I started to read quite much about the topic and decided to try it out , and it worked much better than I expected .

And one good thing also with that was that it freed up one hour every day in my life , which I decided also to invest in exercise . So that way I got a quite good combo of fasting and exercise and weight loss , and after a while I felt that my well-being went up quite much , both physically and mentally much both physically and mentally .

So after a while I felt that I haven't felt this good in my life before . So I must be doing something right here , and so I started to read even more about fasting and things like that and wrote two books about fasting One about short-term fasting , intermittent fasting , and one about extended fasting for several days .

And when I was writing those books , I came across different alternatives to fasting and there were different compounds like metformin , which was a very interesting compound and had quite promising data on it . And then I came also across reprimising .

And when I started to read more about reprimising , my interest just grew and grew and I started to talk to people who was using rapamycin and I talked to also try this compound because it's very aligned with my life goals of living a long and well life .

So and that decision I took took around one year ago , in January , and that is also something I have shared in my social media channels my journey week by week , both both good and not so good sides of taking rapamycin mostly good ones , but we can talk about a little bit more about that later on in this podcast .

But one thing that I like to talk about instead of just mTOR , it's about using another word , which is anabolic processes , because mTOR is only one anabolic process process , and by that we can say that the key driver of the age-related diseases are anabolic processes .

And by inhibiting the anabolic processes and activating something opposite to anabolic processes , which is catabolic processes , we can hopefully in humans slow down the aging rate of the development of age-related diseases . So that is a super interesting thing that I think rapamycin targets in different ways .

One thing that I think also you have touched in different ways is that it's easy to see that mTOR is something bad and that you should avoid it totally . But mTOR has its good sides , but it's when the problem gets . Thing can be said about the catabolic processes .

If you express the catabolic processes too much , then you can start to get very strange diseases because of that which we can see , for example , at the people who have an anorexia or something like that . They can get strange heart failure and things like that , which is not an age-related disease . It's a more catabolic-driven disease .

So the thing here is to try to find some kind of good balance between anabolic processes and catabolic processes . Fasting , for example , activates the catabolic processes and inhibits the anabolic . The same thing with rapamycin . So there are many ways of targeting these different pathways . So that is a super interesting area .

Just to maybe summarize this so catabolic or catabolism is breaking down of cells , breaking down , repair autophagy , and turning mTOR off with rapamycin activates some catabolic processes , as do intermittent fasting and other fasting things , as do intermittent fasting and other fasting things , and then , conversely , anabolic processes are growth processes , sort of hyperfunction in

Misha Blaglascone's viewpoint , and turning mTOR on activates hyperfunction and anabolic processes . And what you say is that neither one is exclusively good or bad . We need both to be healthy , in particular as a young organism , as we're growing up , we need anabolism , a growth to let our brains mature , let our long bones grow and everything .

But as , as Dr Blaglasoni has mentioned in his theory and others theory of hyperfunction , theory of aging that if it , if this growth is turned on as we get older , then we drive some of the diseases , or most of the diseases of longevity . What are some of the other drivers you mentioned of anabolism ?

Certainly mTOR is one , but if we step back away from mTOR , other things would you like insulin ? Insulin , like growth factor ?

So the balance switches throughout the life and it can also switch between different situations . Let's say that a person gets surgery or a wound or something like that . Then that person needs anabolic processes to heal much faster . So even in specific situation that can one year and that was a little bit problematic for me .

I know some people it works perfectly , but for me it was a little bit problematic because I didn't get the sufficient amount of protein and it made me skinny .

So I think every day of OMAD in one year that caused a too catabolic process , I activated too much of the catabolic processes , and so the interesting thing here is to find some kind of measurements or how to navigate in this balance in a good way , and one good measurement , as I see it , is to look at , for example , muscle size and muscle performance .

If that is decreasing , then probably we are in a too catabolic state and we need to get a little bit more anabolic processes in place , but at the same time , you don't need to activate anabolic processes so much so that you get so big so you can compete in a bodybuilding event or something like that , because that , I don't think , is not aligned with longevity

either . So we need to find ways to navigate in this , but currently we don't have all the ways to find the optimal dose around this . But there are some things we can look at , I think .

And the right balance may be different for each of us , and you mentioned looking at muscle mass as an indicator , but it's very hard to know if we're doing it right . I mean , muscle mass is certainly a great one .

I guess we could look at hemoglobin A1c for insulin and fasting insulin as another anabolic factor , as insulin as another cat or anabolic factor , but there really aren't a lot of things we can look at .

If they are very high , then you can probably that can be an indication that you are in a too catabolic stage . You stressed about it too much and energy levels can also be one indication if you have very low energy levels . But that is a little bit it can .

You can have low energy levels if you are like overweight or something like that and have diabetes , and so it's hard to get all the measurements right . But if you have many different measurements and look at the whole picture , then you probably can get some hints if you're too catabolic or too anabolic .

Maybe you could share with our audience now your journey with taking rapamycin , what decisions you made , what tests you got along the way , what was it like ? What do you have to worry about ? What was your experience ? Yeah , you have to worry about what was your experience .

And also , one thing that can be good to point out is that all people tolerate rapamycin differently . Some people can take quite high dose and some cannot even take a low dose or a dose at all .

So and that is also one important thing that to have a conversation with the physician , because that person can help you out in finding a dose that works for you and if things are going in the wrong direction , they can also , yeah , stop the treatment or do changes in the dose protocol or something like that .

And also one other thing is that they can understand much better if rapamycin should not be combined with other types of drugs and things like that . So , yeah , always use a physician around this , so it's not something like going to the gym and doing it by yourself . But yeah , it started with that .

I digged quite a lot in the topic for around one year around rapamycin , because I wanted to also understand the effects and the potential side effects profile and what type of risk I was taking here , and I talked to different peoples who were taking rapamycin . I contacted them and I also posted quite much on social media and discussion forums around my question .

I came to the conclusion together with my , for example , sugar and alcohol and everything I don't need much before I feel the effect . So I didn't want to start with the target dose directly .

So the way we decided that we should do this was to start with the lowest dose , one milligram once weekly , and then slowly , step by step , increase the dose to the target dose , which was six milligrams once weekly , and I think that was a good approach for me . But I know some people are jumping directly to the target dose without any problems .

So , yeah , but for me it was a good approach . And to also minimize the risk , because I didn't know how high dose I could take and I got some interesting effects throughout the journey , but also some side effects . One of the common side effects around rapamycin is mouth sores . That was quite mild mouth sores .

I got them three times during one year and also a little bit . Some of my lipids went up slightly , but not not so much , and that I will say is the side effects that I have noticed . So it was . It was not so big big things and something that I feel that I can live with .

If I get some mouth sore , that is not a huge deal Regarding the beneficial effects that I have seen . The thing that I'm very impressed about is the dental health , because I have struggled quite long time with problems with bleeding gum and I have had contact with many different dentists .

They have tried to help me out without any success me out without any success , and bleeding gum is not something good to have either , because it can lead to early Alzheimer's and other problems with age-related diseases . So I felt that this is something that I need to find a solution for .

But when I started taking it , I didn't know that it will have an impact on dental health . So when I saw that the bleeding was gone and I have not felt any problems with my dental health now , and also when I go to my dental hygienist , she says that my teeth are really good now . So there has been really impressive improvement there .

I know also a researcher called Jonathan N who is going to do a clinical trial this year around this in humans , and there exist also some animal studies in mice which shows quite interesting results also . So , yeah , that's a huge , great benefit I have felt .

One other thing is that I have had problems in my shoulder and some kind of inflammation or something like that , and when I take the rapamycin the inflammation goes down and it feels like my shoulder is also getting better step by step , is also getting better step by step .

So that is also , from a health span and quality of life perspective , one thing that has been a great effect . A third thing is that I have not got sick , have any sick days during this year . That has been one concern that is usually raised around rapamycin , because rapamycin is FDA approved for organ transplant patients .

It's seen as an immune suppressor , but the thing with that is that the immune suppression effect is more seen in higher and daily doses and not in intimate doses such as weekly or every other week doses and much lower doses . So that is , and much lower doses .

So that is also interesting thing that my wife , for example , she almost never gets sick and during this year she got two quite common codes , so and she has not on rapamycin , so she is like the control group for me and but yeah , she got the common code but I didn't get it . My daughter also got the common code , but I didn't get any .

So that is a very , very interesting part also on that . So , yeah , those are probably the top three ones .

she did in a trial of humans , uh , but it was on a weekly dose , but it was immune enhancement and and it was I think they were the . The one of the optimal doses was around that .

But yeah , I'm curious , you mentioned before that you were doing intermittent fasting and longer fasting and I have colleagues you know who , I say you know who are fasting , and I say , well , rapamycin has a lot of the same effects . They go well . Great , I don't have to fast anymore , I'll just take a pill . Is that a good approach in your mind ?

Do you still fast ? Do you have to worry about it ? Is rapamycin the cure for everything or does lifestyle still play a role ?

So as I view it , it's important to get those in place and after that you can add another layer on top of that with other interventions everything from like sauna to rapamycin and other things but never discard the basic lifestyle

interventions . One other interesting thing around if we compare , for example , fasting and rapamycin example fasting and rapamycin . I think it was John Manick , the researcher , who did the research around improved immune system she found that fasting didn't work as well later in life as it did in earlier in life .

But mTOR inhibitors works better later in life also and also in early in life also . But the thing with mTOR inhibitors is that there is a protein which is called AMPK AMPK which calorie restriction and fasting it is better at activating AMPK . And there exists also research around that .

Combining , for example , rapamycin and calorie restriction and things like that can have interesting combinational effects . But of course we need more research on this .

Can you talk about that a little bit and what it is , how people can get involved with it ?

And the one longevity cocktail is the one you mentioned , robert , about rapamycin and ACOBOS , which showed very impressive results in the ITP , the intervention testing program in mice . But that is a quite simple cocktail , but currently that is the best cocktail that we have .

The lab is going to develop , engineer much more advanced cocktails , and the way we're going to do this is we're going to start developing these cocktails in new worms With the help of technology which is developed by a company called Aura Biomedical .

They have a warm boot which makes it possible for us to , in a high , efficient and cost effective way to develop these cocktails . And when we have some of these cocktails , then we are going to test them in mice and after that we are going to test them in clinical trials and hopefully get some approved for human use . So that is our goal .

You know , coming up with a cocktail and testing all these things , which could take decades or , you know , years to decades , but with what you're doing , this is possible in a very short time frame . You know , I think you know someone was Matt Kaeberlein was talking about doing a million molecules .

Someone was Matt Kaeberlein was talking about doing a million molecules . That's their goal testing a million different things in five years or something . But it shows you the power of the technology .

So can people , in addition to following you and seeing the work you're doing with the work on the Rapamycin Longevity Lab , can they also participate and help fund different things ? Maybe ? How would they do that ? Or how can they find out more about that ?

So the as as we knew it in the lab , is that together we can do so much more than some few people . And , yeah , let's do this journey together .

It's you know , every week there's new breakthroughs , and this has been so much fun . I think we need to come back and do another podcast . This has been so much fun . I think we need to . We need to come back and do another podcast , because we have so much more stuff to talk about that we didn't .

We didn't get to today , but I want to be respectful of , uh , everyone's time and uh , christer , it was great , it was great to chat with you and and thank you for coming to us all the way from sweden . What time is it there now ?