Reviewing mTOR Inhibition as a Pharmacological Strategy to Modestly Slow Aging

It is arguably the case that we should look at small molecule mTOR inhibitors, such as rapamycin and its descendant rapalog compounds, as the most effective of the calorie restriction mimetic approaches developed to date. The practice of calorie restriction, eating as much as 40% fewer calories while still obtaining optimal levels of micronutrients, produces sweeping changes to metabolism. Some of these, such as increased autophagy and other forms of cellular housekeeping, appear to be beneficial to long-term health. Keeping cells more free of damage leads to a slowing of aging. In mice, that slowing of aging can lead to as much as a 40% extension of life span via calorie restriction. Rapamycin, on the other hand, managed a 5% to 10% extension of life span in the very rigorous Interventions Testing Program studies. This illustrates one of the issues with calorie restriction mimetic treatments, which is that they only capture a fraction of the beneficial metabolic change produced by calorie restriction, and are therefore considerably less effective. The other issue is that the practice of calorie restriction certainly doesn't produce a 40% extension of life span in humans; that would be quite evident, and have been well known since antiquity. Long-lived mammals exhibit very similar short-term metabolic changes and improved measures of health in comparison to short-lived mammals when undergoing calorie restriction, but long-term effects on life span are much more ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs