Mike Norman's Blog

I’ve been reading alot about new drugs coming out to extend the human lifespan, and I thought I would post about what the intention of these drugs is, and how they intend to have them work. First off whenever I talk about life extension with those who are unfamiliar with the field i inevitably get a response like “Great, ten more years of shitting in diapers and not knowing where you are”. It goes without saying that this is not the goal of life extension. The goal of these drugs and the field of study is to extend the healthy lifespan. The part of your life that doesn’t involve diapers or dementia.

Most of the drug or supplements being developed to slow the aging process work by controlling caloric intake, or process caloric intake. This is to say they either make you not want to eat more, or cause everything that you eat beyond an amount of calories not be used. this would give you all the health and longevity of someone on a caloric restricted diet without having to deal with actually restricting your caloric intake. this approach comes with the benefit of improved memory, lowered cholesterol, lower blood pressure, and alot of other awesome effects. This new drug that everyone is buzzing about goes at the aging process another way.

Sirolimus or Rapamycin is used to suppress the body’s immune system to prevent organ rejection after transplants. However a recent study has shown that under laboratory conditions it has allowed mice to live up to 14% longer. Laboratory conditions being critical to this as the drug all but shuts down the mouse’s immune system, if it were not in a laboratory the subject would have died alot sooner form disease or infection. here’s the cool part though. Rapamycin works by inhibiting the “TOR” kinase. What this gene does is control cell mortality, reproduction, transcription, etc. The suppression of TOR activity appears to extend life though caloric restriction. that is because

“TOR kinases define a primary conduit through which excess nutrient intake limits longevity in yeast.” -[source]

However that quote is from an article pertaining to yeast longevity. I only assume it’s the same principal behind Rapamycins effectiveness as a life extension drug. So that’s the scoop on the new life extension drug. Not really useful to humans yet, what with the immune system suppression issue and all. If we can use what we have learned from this drug and find another way to suppress TOR1, or find a way to resolve the immune system suppression, then we are in business!