A controversial longevity pill
Inside the anti-aging Silk Road.
Post summary
A curious pill called rapamycin is circulating among the anti-aging community.
Some research suggests rapamycin may delay death—but other research suggests it might have some serious unintended consequences.
Still, some people are going to extreme and possibly dangerous measures to get the pill.
We explored the world of rapamycin and talked to various players in the space—researchers, doctors, ethicists, and people going to questionable lengths to get their hands on the drugs.
You’ll learn:
The promises and perils of rapamycin, and what it says about the longevity movement.
How rapamycin might extend lifespan.
The potentially dangerous ways people are getting rapamycin.
Causes of aging.
What 100+ years of history about the longevity movement says about the modern longevity craze.
What the top rapamycin researcher thinks about prescribing the drug for longevity.
How to think about longevity practices.
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The Post
About six years ago, I found a curious pill circulating among people in the longevity world.
The pill, however, wasn’t approved for longevity. It was called rapamycin, a drug developed to suppress the immune system for organ transplants, procedures like stent insertions, and the treatment of rare diseases.
And the people taking the drug for longevity were getting it in some, let’s say, curious ways.
I started asking questions, following threads, and inserting myself into a world of people seeking the fountain of youth.
I thought of the drug recently after watching the Netflix documentary on Brian Johnson, who spends a reported $2 million a year on what many consider “fringe therapies” to delay death. In the film, Brian takes a heavy dose of rapamycin.
We begin with three characters: Louis, Charles, and Van.
Louis
Louis is a 27-year-old assembly-line worker in Three Rivers, Michigan. He has no health problems and rarely sees a doctor.
Yet for a man in his prime, Louis thinks a lot about death and avoiding it. He researches strategies online, and converted to a plant-based diet after hearing from a YouTube channel called Vegan Gains that veganism could extend his life.
Louis thinks the diet will buy him a few extra years, but he feels the urge to keep seeking new life-extending methods.
“I’d like to live as healthily as possible for as long as possible,” he told me. “And if we have therapies and practices today that will prolong our healthy life span, I believe we need to follow these therapies and practices.”
Charles
Charles is your average 50-year-old middle-class family man. He lives in the suburbs of Atlanta, works a 9-to-5 in marketing, does Brazilian jujitsu, and spends weekends watching his kid at wrestling tournaments.
But Charles has a hang-up: He worries about aging.
He’s taken a 23andMe tests that show he has some risk of age-related diseases, and he fears the hallmarks of aging, like thinning hair, losing a step, and forgetting things. Charles is active on anti-aging Internet forums and takes fistfuls of supplements.
Van
Van is 72. He managed medical-device sales in Boston until he retired and moved to Spain. He used to run five miles and lift weights three times each per week.
But in his late 60s, all that wellness stuff wasn’t working so well. “I began getting really tired in the afternoons,” said Van. “I’d be too tired at night to go out to dinner, and I also started having high blood pressure. I was feeling the effects of aging.”
His attempts at flinging a kettlebell were halfhearted, and his walks around the neighborhood were getting slower. Van felt the sun was setting on the life of vitality he loved and that he was heading toward a gloomy and inevitable bedridden demise.
Salvation by science
Each of these men found a solution to their concerns about aging at roughly the same place and time.
They came across information in Reddit threads and on longevity blogs and podcasts about something the Redditors and podcasters said could help them live better for longer:
It would make Louis healthier now and in the future, as his friends saw their bodies fade to time.
It would slash Charles’s risk of Alzheimer’s and have guys ten years younger tapping out against him in BJJ.
It would kick-start Van’s training again and drop his blood biomarkers to those of someone half his age.
It had the potential to be more powerful than diet and exercise. But it also had the potential to cause some problems.
The promises of rapamycin
In 1964, scientists studying disease on Easter Island noticed that locals weren’t getting tetanus through their feet as expected. They thought the soil might hold secrets, so they collected samples and stored them in a University of Montreal lab.
Five years later, researchers analyzing the samples discovered a powerful molecule that suppresses the immune system. It became known as rapamycin.
By 1999, the FDA had approved rapamycin (branded as Rapamune) for transplant patients to prevent their immune systems from rejecting the organ. Then, in the 2000s, scientists found that rapamycin had another remarkable effect: it extended lifespan.
Studies showed that worms, yeast, and mice given rapamycin lived significantly longer. In a 2009 Nature study, mice saw more than a 10 percent increase in lifespan. A 2014 study found a 25 percent boost.
These results sent shockwaves through the longevity community. If rapamycin could extend a mouse’s life by nearly a quarter, what could it do for humans?
But there was a catch.
The perils of rapamycin
Rapamycin wasn’t exactly benign, nor was it something Louis, Charles, or Van could pick up at CVS.