Rapamycin + Diet? – rapamycin

Taking low-dose, once a week rapamycin (titrating up to 6mg once a week) to treat long covid, as per the PolyBio clinical trial. As one of its mechanisms of action is to inhibit mTOR, would it be more effective if I pair it with a specific diet – eg caloric restriction or keto – diets known to also inhibit mTOR, or is this not necessary ? Would it further inhibit mTOR or not really

Thanks!

This site tries to remain diet neutral for the most part and respect that there are a wide variety of diets that different people prefer. That said, I’ve read that several people on this forum fast in conjunction with their rapa dosing.
Although you didn’t ask- for my long covid I ended up getting the Pfizer Comirnaty shot after 3 people (one being my family doc) mentioned that it resolved their long covid symptoms. Excuse me sharing my personal experience if it’s not welcomed.

No studies to support any specific diet with rapamycin use so a lot of speculations.

1. Cycling between anabolic and catabolic states is probably the way to maintain lean tissue while keeping senescence under control.
2. Low protein, calorie restriction or fasting are probably not necessary with rapamycin – Attia even stopped recommending IF. Too much catabolism may reduce bone/muscle mass, a better way is to do #3
3. Exercise selectively inhibits mtor and provides other benefits such increasing bone/muscle
4. Low glycemic load diets that keep the glucose and insulin levels steady are always a good idea.
5. Good ole mediterranean diet (or Okinawan or other variation) with mix of plant and some high quality animal protein is always a good idea and studies show most benefit.
6. Keto is a blunt tool, rarely useful beyond specific indications or short term use.

Is there a definition for Mediterranean diet? The most compelling study I saw (PREDIMED) involved sending participants a weekly bottle of olive oil or 7 ounces of nuts and my takeaway from that was the benefit was likely to be centered on the consumption of olive oil or nuts. I guess my question is – do we get the majority of the benefits of the “Mediterranean diet” by supplementing with olive oil or nuts?

Any diet that is low glycemic, that involves whole grain, veggie, legumes, fruit, nuts, seeds, healthy oils, fermented products like dairy, and quality protein mainly fish, select dairy, poultry, etc. that does not include ultra-processed foods may go under various names such Nordic, Dash, Okinawan, West African is generally accepted as healthy based on multiple observational studies of diets themselves or individual components themselves.
This is my personal conclusion after reading hundreds of such studies but also general consensus among experts in the field.
Whether it is called specifically Mediterranean diet is or if it involves olive or rapeseed oil is just minutiae.

Out of curiosity, what are the effects of a “low glycemic diet”? Does it prevent glucose spikes, what else? Because you can get the same amount of glucose from a high vs low glycemic diet, is my understanding, just that low glycemic diet glucose hits the blood over a longer period of time (also preventing spikes). Glucose spikes are presumably undesirable. Because a low glycemic diet can’t mean – can it? – just a low carb, or less glucose amount, that’s a different thing, you can get less glucose just by limiting calories, so having nothing else than two twinkies for a total of 800 cal a day will be simply CR. That presumably is not a low glycemic diet. The absolute amount of glucose is held steady, and the difference is just slow vs fast release.

I ask, because if it’s mostly about glucose spikes, then SGLT2i should take care of that.

This is what AI gives me:

“A low glycemic index (GI) diet is a way of eating that limits foods with high GI values and emphasizes foods with low GI values. The goal of a low-GI diet is to improve blood sugar control and dietary quality.”

I mean, you could just consume the carb with a bit of fat and achieve some measure of “blood sugar control”. There seems a lot of handwaving here and it’s unclear what the evidence based approach would look like. A little confusing, seems to me, the closer you look, the more squishy it gets.

yes, there is lots of ways, vinegar, acarbose,…, my argument is always that as long as we do not know a complex evolved system very well, we may better stay close to the natural ways, although of course rapamycin is not so natural, but mTOR inhibition and autophagy are more naturally occuring during hungry times looking for food, so around rapamycin days, fasting except for grapefruit, definitely very little protein, catabolic exercise rather than muscle building. No, not necessarily, no papers to cite, but why go further than necessary from what the body evolved with? Just inviting as yet unknown consequences. And all in moderation, meaning it won’t cut down on muscle that you cannot get back quite immediately.

My brother, who has Bechterew disease and sarcoidosis in his lungs, got a complete remission of all symptoms after his second and after his third Pfizer Comirnaty shot. This lasted for a week or something like ten days. Then the symptoms came back, and he had low-grade symptoms for a while. And after some more time, the symptoms were back to the normal state. So he was really looking forward to the fourth shot. But after this fourth shot, his symptoms became much worse. The speculation is that he, at that time, had a minor infection.

Yes, she covid shots sometimes affects people in unforeseen ways.

I just wanted to know if a type of diet that’s known to inhibit mTOR eg keto or CR, would FURTHER inhibit mTOR when done alongside rapamycin, as opposed to just taking rapamycin alone

Some studies suggest lowered methionine intake, but we’re talking about an intake of such low amounts of methionine that it’s unlikely anyone would be able to achieve that – without it seriously affecting muscle mass/health.

That’s why people wear a GCM. Keeping glucose level in range reduces AGEs, insulin, IGF-1, fat storage, etc.

That’s a very unspecific question.
Depends on you rapamycin dosage, frequency and extend of your diet.
With typical 4-6 mg once a week, you definitely don’t get persistent m-tor inhibition and I am pretty sure with that dosing you only turn down the m-tor.
So yes adding low protein diet, low glycemic, fasting, extreme exercise, some supplements can turn down the m-tor further… but I am not sure what are you trying to achieve with that and there are big downsides to adding these other measures.

I have been using 8mg per week for a year with two weeks off every 6 weeks. At 73yes old I just noticed my new hair growth behind my head co ing in black instead of grey. Any connection?

I think so yes. In a small way for me, but it helped for sure.