Imagine taking a medication that would help you live a longer, healthier life. It is the stuff of Disney films and fairy tales.
However, a medicine like that for anti-aging isn’t just for fiction. For a very long time, researchers have been looking for healthy anti-aging medications. And there is such a medication: rapamycin.
When administered to lab animals over their whole lives, rapamycin is already well known for its anti-aging properties. However, there are adverse side effects from this lifetime dosage.
Now, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging in Cologne, Germany, have found that brief exposure to the medication can have the same anti-aging and health-preserving effects as a lifelong dosage—without the negative side effects. This might create fresh, permanent opportunities for human consumption.
The group’s research was published in the magazine Nature Aging.
How can rapamycin be of assistance?
Let’s face it, everyone nowadays is living longer. So why not do it more comfortably and easily? As a result, scientists have been investing a lot of time and money in identifying effective anti-aging treatments.
Rapamycin, a cell growth inhibitor and immunosuppressant typically used in cancer treatment and following organ transplants, is now the most promising anti-aging medication. In order to have the desired anti-aging effect, it must be taken continuously throughout one’s life. Rapamycin is not a realistic option for people who want to fight the effects of aging because it has some unfavorable side effects when used often over an extended length of time.
Because of this, the Max Planck Institute team sought to investigate whether the medicine may still have the same anti-aging effects if used for a short period of time without producing the same unfavorable side effects.
short exposure
The scientists found that a small window of two weeks of treatment in young, adult flies protected them from age-related disease in the intestine and prolonged their survival after testing various brief doses of the medicine on fruit flies. For young adult mice that were three months old, a brief window of three months exhibited the same beneficial results.
“We also discovered that, compared to middle age, early life treatment with rapamycin had the strongest and best effects. Rapamycin, on the other hand, had no effects whatsoever when it was administered to the flies in their later stages of life. So, early adulthood is when the rapamycin memory is most active “Dr. Thomas Leech, a co-author of the work, noted.
Overall, the research seems promising, but more work must be done before the team can test the medicine on humans. For the time being, however, it appears that the medicine can be given to young adults over a shorter length of time and can help them age better and more healthily. When given to older persons, the effects were not as favorable.
Professor Linda Partridge, the study’s senior author, said “Since the duration of treatment should be as short as feasible, it will be critical to determine whether it is possible to accomplish the geroprotective effects of rapamycin in mice and people with treatment beginning later in life. Intermittent dosing may also be an option. This investigation has created many new opportunities while also posing numerous questions.”