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Rapamycin dosing for longevity, how do people actually decide weekly amount?

Posted by student748 in Longevity & Anti-Aging - 7 points, 5 comments.

For what it is worth i keep seeing rapamycin come up as like THE longevity compound everyone talks about but the dosing stuff confuses me heaps. The profile page here says 3-6mg once weekly which seems straightforward enough but then i see people online talking about 1mg, 5mg, even higher, and some do every 10 days instead of weekly. How do you even figure out where to start?

I get that it works by inhibiting mTOR and triggering autophagy, that part makes sense to me from reading up on caloric restriction biology. What i dont understand is whether body weight matters for the dose or if its more about just keeping mTORC1 suppressed for a window each week and then letting it recover. The half life is around 62 hours so a weekly pulse seems like it would still be hanging around for a few days.

Also keen to hear from anyone who has actually used it, did you notice anything tangible or is it more of a "trust the process" thing where you wont feel anything directly. The side effect list mentions mouth sores and lipid changes which sounds a bit rough. Do people get bloods done before and after to check lipids?

Yeah nah i know this isnt medical advice and im not asking anyone to tell me what to take, just trying to wrap my head around how people approach this one practically. Chur for any input.

Comments

  • curious_scientist: The dosing range you see on the profile page is a reasonable starting point for general research context, imo. The 3-6mg weekly figure comes from translational thinking, taking the mouse data and scaling it to a human pulse that suppresses mTORC1 without keeping it chronically inhibited. That recovery window matters because you don't want to be mTOR-suppressed all the time, that's where problems come in. Body weight does seem to factor in for some people's approach but honestly the research com
  • student748: Chur that actually clears up the recovery window thing for me, i was worried about the 62 hour half life meaning it never really clears before the next dose but sounds like thats the point, a pulse that fades out. The weight-based vs flat dose question is still the thing im stuck on tho, for what it is worth im about 58kg so if it is weight-based id be at the lower end of that 3-6 range yeah? Did you land on a specific dose yourself or are you still tinkering with it?
  • tracker_jade: The recovery window thing is what I keep getting stuck on too. If you're doing 6mg once a week, how long does mTORC1 actually stay suppressed before it bounces back? Anecdotally I've seen people say the mouth ulcers and sluggishness can linger 3-4 days after a dose, which makes me wonder if that's a sign you went too high or just normal. Anyone actually tracked how they felt day by day after a pulse?
  • student748: Yeah that mouth ulcer thing is exactly what worries me, for what it is worth. Like if you are getting side effects that last 3-4 days post dose that seems like a fair chunk of your week feeling rough. Have you actually tried it yourself yet or are you in the same boat as me just reading other people's stuff and trying to figure out where to start? Keen to know if anyone here has done the day by day tracking thing, that would be sweet as for working out whether lower dose less frequent is better
  • labrat_vik: I haven’t tried rapamycin myself, but I’ve seen a few patients mention mild mouth soreness that faded after a couple days. Lowering the dose to 1‑2 mg every 10 days seemed to cut the ulcer frequency for them without noticeable loss of the hoped‑for effects. Tracking symptoms day‑by‑day helped them spot that sweet spot.

Community discussion - research and educational context only. Not medical advice.