[HN Gopher] Rapamycin: One Drug, Many Effects (2014)
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       Rapamycin: One Drug, Many Effects (2014)
        
       Author : sandwichsphinx
       Score  : 24 points
       Date   : 2024-10-27 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cell.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cell.com)
        
       | debacle wrote:
       | The discovery of rapamycin sounds like something a Joe Rogan
       | guest would pontificate about. What an interesting drug.
        
         | adamredwoods wrote:
         | Joe Rogan only shows interest to conspiracy and contraversy, so
         | I don't think he would invite a guest to pontificate about
         | science and medicine that could be benefitial to humankind.
         | 
         | But it is an interesting drug:
         | 
         | >> The protein, now called mTOR, was originally named FRAP by
         | Stuart L. Schreiber and RAFT1 by David M. Sabatini;[6][7] FRAP1
         | was used as its official gene symbol in humans. Because of
         | these different names, mTOR, which had been first used by
         | Robert T. Abraham,[6] was increasingly adopted by the community
         | of scientists working on the mTOR pathway to refer to the
         | protein and in homage to the original discovery of the TOR
         | protein in yeast that was named TOR, the Target of Rapamycin,
         | by Joe Heitman, Rao Movva, and Mike Hall
        
           | ALittleLight wrote:
           | Just googled "Joe Rogan rapamycin". Seems like he talks about
           | it in multiple episodes with (at least) doctors Peter Attia
           | and David Sinclair.
        
             | bitwize wrote:
             | Not surprising. Rogan is also an aging gymbro who would
             | definitely be interested in anything that might boost
             | performance to youth-like levels.
        
       | Kalanos wrote:
       | my opinion is that targeting mTOR is fruitless because it's so
       | broad and integral to life that it's like a self-righting ship or
       | trying to sink a life preserver.
       | 
       | as described in the conclusion: "This may be explained by the
       | inability of rapamycin to completely block mTORC1-mediated
       | signaling events, the presence of several feedback loops, and the
       | upregulation of compensatory pathways that promote cell survival
       | and growth."
       | 
       | targeting mTOR is like saying "let's write a bug that takes down
       | Linux"... the community isn't going to let that happen
        
         | Teever wrote:
         | Can you elaborate?
         | 
         | It seems to be not fruitless in all the organisms that it has
         | worked on so far.
        
       | nabla9 wrote:
       | It's everything. It can work against cancer and cause cancer.
       | Make you age slower, but kill you faster.
       | 
       | It's immunosuppressant. Suppressing immune system for completely
       | health person decreases inflammation that comes with aging.
       | Suppressing immune system makes person more vulnerable for
       | infections (flu, sepsis, herpes, ...), and wounds heal slower.
       | Also cancers.
        
         | api wrote:
         | Humans are already among the longest living land mammals and
         | rank pretty high among _all_ large animals land or otherwise.
         | We 're already evolutionarily optimized for longevity.
         | 
         | Trying to push further out seems to run into a lot of trade-
         | offs. It seems from what I've read that there are mechanisms
         | that cause aging but also are defenses against cancer, like
         | telomere shortening which imposes a cellular division limit.
         | The immune system causes inflammation which causes aging but
         | turn that off and stuff eats you. And so on...
         | 
         | Not saying it's not possible, just that it's going to require
         | more than tweaking a few knobs. I highly doubt there will ever
         | be a "longevity pill" that _radically_ extends life span,
         | though obviously there are medications that can have some
         | positive effect especially on health span. Anything radical
         | like taking the average well past 100-120 years is probably
         | going to require genetic engineering or radical (and invasive)
         | regenerative medicine.
        
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       (page generated 2024-10-27 23:01 UTC)