Oregon State University Researchers Study Rapamycin's Anti-Aging Properties
Researchers at Oregon State University are studying a drug that they believe can suppress both aging and susceptibility of disease. Researchers at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State are studying rapamycin, which is an approved antibiotic and immunosuppressant that has been shown in animal studies to emulate the effects of dietary restriction. Dietary restriction has been known to have a positive effect on the reduction of aging and susceptibility of disease. In lab tests, animals treated with the drug were healthier and lived longer on average. According to those involved in the Oregon State University study, this drug, if used in combination with another drug could increase a patient’s lifespan and improve overall health.
There are potential setbacks to the treatment, which have been published in the Journals of Gerontology: Biological Sciences. Those issues include an increase in insulin resistance — a side effect that could increase the risk of diabetes in those taking rapamycin. The study’s authors stated that patients taking rapamycin could benefit from potentially taking a second drug to offset the side effects of rapamycin.
Viviana Perez, who is an assistant professor at Oregon’s Biochemistry and Biophsyics department, spoke about the potential uses of rapamycin and its adverse side effects. “This could be an important advance if it helps us find a way to gain the apparent benefits of rapamycin without increasing insulin resistance,” said Perez. “It could provide a way not only to increase lifespan but to address some age-related diseases and improve general health. We might find a way for people not only to live longer, but to live better and with a higher quality of life.”
Perez went on to talk about how the drug mimics the effect of dietary restriction. She said that the drug does this by inhibiting the mTOR pathway, and that a restricted diet in animals tested in labs has increased their lifespans by as much as 30 percent.
Rapamycin is a natural macrolide and immunosuppressant. It has been previously used in humans to prevent organ rejection. The drug has also been shown to suppress tumors, which many researchers believe is the true reason the drug has increased the life span of mice. According to researchers from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the Helmholtz Zentrum München, while some aging traits, such as memory and red blood count were improved in older mice on the drug in their study, many aging traits remained the same even as the mice lived longer life spans with rapamycin treatment. Researchers said more work needed to be done before determining if the drug could be used to “open up new possibilities for medicine.”
Because high doses of rapamycin also promotes insulin resistance, researchers are now saying it might be necessary for patients being treated with the drug to also be treated with insulin based medications, such as metformin. A combination of metformin and rapamycin has been effective in stopping insulin resistance in recent studies.