<div dir="ltr">Well, that cuts to the heart of the challenge. I haven't really found any easily available way to monitor efficacy. I do have baseline basic blood work including fasting insulin levels, and after running it again approximately 6 months out, my fasting insulin is way better (caveat that I also started out heavy, and have been losing weight so there may be confounding variables). <div><br></div><div>One side effect I would mention that I do believe is coming from the rapamycin is that my overall white blood cell count did drop significantly compared to baseline after 6 months out. It is still within the normal reference range so I am not concerned (or surprised), but it's hard to tell if there are other offsetting positive effects on subtypes of immune related cells with the blunt testing tools I have available.</div><div><br></div><div>Further complicating testing beyond standard panels is that I have to pay for all of it myself since none of this is covered by insurance.</div><div><br></div><div>I do wish I had run some kind of baseline methylation (Horvath) testing when I started. I am still planning on getting this done at some point but haven't yet.</div><div><br></div><div>If I figure out any way to monitor results more meaningfully, I'll definitely share here if anyone is interested.</div><div><br></div><div>At the end of the day, building a potential longevity/healthspan stack involves a leap of faith to some extent unfortunately. I have reviewed a great deal of the literature on mTOR, metformin, and rapamycin, and personally see enough evidence of a potential life extension mechanism to extrapolate and take the plunge. YMMV of course.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Sep 8, 2019 at 10:10 AM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">On Sep 8, 2019, at 6:51 AM, Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br>
> <br>
> I've been pulsing rapamycin for close to a year with no noticeable side effects. Taken once weekly, the idea is it maximizes hitting mTORC1 and minimizes hitting mTORC2. The literature indicates the anti aging effects are from the former and the negative side effects from the latter. <br>
> <br>
> I am taking a leap at this point ahead of clinical trials though. <br>
> <br>
> Interesting article, so I just thought I'd share my related personal experiment for those interested...<br>
<br>
Thanks for sharing that. Are there any related metrics you do that would give you a clue here that it’s doing something?<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<br>
Dan<br>
Sample my Kindle books at:<br>
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