NHPR piece on exercise plus anti-inflammatories for aging, rapamycin is the hook
Posted by patient_codes in Longevity & Anti-Aging - 5 points, 4 comments.
NHPR has a story up about a new study looking at whether exercise combined with anti-inflammatory drugs can actually slow aging, and rapamycin is front and center as the compound getting tested.
I thought this was a pretty grounded take, honestly. They quote researchers talking about off-label low-dose use without treating it like a miracle, which I appreciate, because most coverage either hypes it or dismisses it entirely. The framing around mTOR and inflammation is the same thing people have been saying for years, but it's nice to see it in a more rigorous trial design.
My only worry is that exercise is gonna do 90 percent of the heavy lifting in the results and rapamycin will get credit it didn't really earn. Curious if anyone here has stacked a real training block alongside low-dose rapamycin and noticed anything beyond what training alone gives you ðŸ§
Comments
- weekendnate: Yeah this was a solid writeup, probably the most even-handed piece on rapamycin I've seen in mainstream media in a while. They didn't pretend mTOR inhibition is a fountain of youth, which alone puts it ahead of 90 percent of longevity coverage. That said, your worry is exactly mine. Exercise already has decades of data showing it moves basically every biomarker people care about, and the dose response is well understood. If they run this trial in older sedentary folks and the exercise group cat
- patient_codes: Totally with you on that, exercise almost always catches up, I've seen it with my own gym people where just getting consistent with training moves more markers than any compound they've tried. The 6 month window is the key though, if they extend it out to 12-18 months that's where rapamycin might actually separate, at least theoretically from what Mannick's earlier data showed. I didn't run real rapa myself so I can't speak to stacking it directly, but the few folks in my circle who did low-dos
- retired_coldplunge: That's the thing that bugs me about these designs too. If the exercise arm is properly loaded (not some gentle walking protocol), a lot of the inflammation markers rapamycin targets are already going to come down on their own. Fwiw I've seen people in my orbit get more from consistent training than from anything they stacked on top of it. Curious whether they'll bother stratifying by fitness baseline, because that's where it gets interesting.
- patient_codes: Yeah the baseline thing is exactly what I was trying to put my finger on, thanks for spelling it out. Someone who's been lifting heavy for years is starting from a totally different place than a sedentary control, so the delta from rapa is gonna look way smaller in the trained group. Would not be surprised if they just report an average and the effect basically vanishes for anyone who's already doing the work ðŸ§
Community discussion - research and educational context only. Not medical advice.