Spermidine for autophagy, anyone stacking it with weekly rapamycin?

Posted by student748 in Longevity & Anti-Aging - 10 points, 4 comments.

Been doing low dose rapamycin weekly for a bit now and reading heaps about spermidine as another autophagy pathway. The idea of stacking them sounds interesting on paper but i genuinely dont know if thats redundant or complementary. Like if rapamycin is already hitting mTOR hard once a week, does adding daily spermidine actually do anything extra or am i just paying for overlap?

For what it is worth i tried spermidine on its own for about a month last year, 3mg daily, and honestly couldnt tell you i felt anything concrete. Maybe slightly less brain fog on busy weeks but that could just be placebo or better sleep that week. Nothing dramatic.

The food source angle is interesting too, like wheat germ and aged cheese. I already eat a fair bit of that stuff naturally so maybe im getting some baseline amount already? No idea how much youd actually need to eat to hit a meaningful dose though.

Keen to hear if anyone here is running both together and noticed anything, or if you tried spermidine and binned it. Chur for any input.

Comments

• fasted_scientist: Ngl I’ve been on low‑dose rapamycin once a week for a few months and threw in spermidine 3 mg daily for a month just to see if anything stacked up. Honestly I didn’t notice any extra change beyond what I already felt from the rapamycin – slightly better recovery after night shifts, but that could be the rapamycin or just a good week of sleep. The theory is that rapamycin hits mTORC1 hard intermittently while spermidine works more through eIF5A hypusination and can promote autophagy independentl
• sleep_coastal: Anecdotally that matches what I saw too, the pathway theory sounds clean on paper but in practice you just can't feel autophagy happening. I ran spermidine solo for a month and got nothing concrete either. The eIF5A angle is real in the literature but whether 3mg oral gets you there is a whole different question. Bioavailability on these polyamines is pretty rough from what I've read.
• student748: Yeah the bioavailability thing is exactly what i was wondering about, like if oral spermidine barely gets absorbed then maybe the whole stack question is moot anyway. For what it is worth the eIF5A angle is new to me, havent gone down that rabbit hole yet. Have you looked into whether there's a delivery method that actually gets it where it needs to go or is it just a dead end orally?
• student748: Chur for that, good to hear someone else tried basically the same combo. Your experience lines up with mine pretty exactly, felt like nothing extra on top of the rapamycin. The eIF5A hypusination angle is interesting though, i hadnt dug into that pathway properly. Are you still running the spermidine daily or did you drop it after that month?

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