Resveratrol Doesn't Extend Life, Limited Benefit to Rapamycin
At the SENS Foundation, Michael Rae looks at the NIA Interventions Testing Program examination of resveratrol and rapamycin: "Combined with their positive results with rapamycin, the failure of resveratrol to extend life using resveratrol in normal mice over a very wide range of doses should reasonably be taken to put the resveratrol "story" to test. On the other hand, the ability of rapamycin to extend life in these mice has been confirmed, and expanded to a preliminary extent. Naturally, further studies are underway or proposed to elucidate the full nature of these effects. ... At the same time, whatever these studies may reveal, even the most optimistic reading of these results and an assumption of perfect human translatability is still overshadowed by how limited the results are. Interventions such as rapamycin, which only retard the rate at which aging damage accumulates (or, perhaps, allows the organism to carry on functioning for a longer period of time under its accumulating burden), can only temporarily delay the onset of age-related ill-health, not arrest or reverse it - and in the case of rapamycin, the first pharmacological agent to extend the lives of otherwise-healthy mammals, its ability to do even this has been found to be limited." Drugs that slow aging - slow the rate at which damage occurs - are not a desirable end point for the next twenty years of research, when we could instead be working instead to reverse aging by repairing biochemical damage.
Mr. Rae's positive comments rapamycin should not give license to think that drug could possibly be used to prolong life in humans. Rapamycin is an immune-suppressive drug used to inhibit rejection in organ transplantation. The serious side effects posed by rapamycin eliminate its use in healthy humans. The dose of resveratrol used in the mouse study, where the animals lived shorter lives, was extremely high and is counterproductive. Much lower doses have been shown to more closely mimic a calorie-restricted diet. One relatively low-dose res pill differentiated 633 of 832 genes in the same direction as calorie restriction. A red flag should accompany high-dose resveratrol pills
I think both Reason and I have made it clear that we do not endorse human use of rapamycin as a life extension drug in healthy humans. It's revolutionary because unlike resveratrol it actually works, not because the results to date merit human adoption as an anti-aging agent.
... except in the way that actually counts: extending lifespan.
... and low-dose resveratrol pills: a red flag clearly stating that they don't work.
This would appear to run contrary to the research quoted at http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2008/feb2008_Living-Longer-Healthier-Lives-With-Resveratrol_03.htm?source=search&key=resveratrol%20aging