Rapamycin: The unlucky history of the most powerful anti-aging drug

Re:Rapamycin: The unlucky history of the most powerful anti-... by xk_id on Monday May 08, 2023 @04:56AM (#35859529)

That’s not very accurate. It wasn’t implicated in actually causing cancers. Tumour cells happen to have a high demand for NAD+, and NR provides them with that. So, if you already have tumours, NR will accelerate their growth. However also if you have had cancer recently and even if there are no more detectable signs, it is still possible for some tumour cells to be present; in that case NR is also risky. But if you are healthy, NR is not a carcinogen and any risk of stimulating the odd tumour cell is probably offset by the benefits NR provides to the immune system.

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Re:Rapamycin: The unlucky history of the most powerful anti-... by tysam_and on Monday May 08, 2023 @05:05AM (#35859579)

This is an excellent direct summarization of NR<->Cancer. Thank you for sharing this, I greatly appreciate it. <3 :)

Not everyone needs NR necessarily (or any of the other forms), but it does seem to get more important as we get older and our ability to manufacture NMN goes down (IIRC that's the main target that's limited here?)

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Re:Rapamycin: The unlucky history of the most powerful anti-... by thewataccount on Monday May 08, 2023 @02:35PM (#35865339)

IIRC isn't NAC similar? It's not carcinogenic itself, but the benefits it provides also extend to the cancer cells?

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Re:Rapamycin: The unlucky history of the most powerful anti-... by garganzol on Monday May 08, 2023 @05:33PM (#35867315)

NAC is a glutathione precursor. It is both anti- and pro- cancer. It is anti-cancer in a sense that glutathione reduces the risk of getting cancer in the first place. It is pro-cancer in a sense that it reduces the power of immune response due to reduction of the amount of produced ROS, which may theoretically lead to a faster cancer spread.

So yeah, they both are kind of similar in that dimension.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Rapamycin: The unlucky history of the most powerful anti-... by tysam_and on Monday May 08, 2023 @10:45PM (#35869644)

I can't speak either way on the cancer effects, but fun fact to all reading, NAC is a great glutamate mop because glutathione is made of 3 amino acids, IIRC, and glutamate is one of them. NAC is literally just glutathione without the glutamate, and it crosses the BBB and such more easily too, I believe?

In any case, it grabs onto free glutamate, and, whammo! less glutamate, instant glutathione. quite the nifty trick.

has some interesting data/studies backing it up, and also has some great psychiatric effects as well. IIRC it's used for schizophrenia among other things.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Rapamycin: The unlucky history of the most powerful anti-... by onlyrealcuzzo on Monday May 08, 2023 @03:15PM (#35865832)

I think you're assuming the body doesn't form small tumors and destroy them naturally.

If something else is helping the tumors grow faster than the body can kill them naturally - then it's going to result both more severe tumors AND more tumors in general (as we discover them, since we usually don't know about tumors that form and get destroyed by the body naturally).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Rapamycin: The unlucky history of the most powerful anti-... by xk_id on Monday May 08, 2023 @05:12PM (#35867144)

Covered in the last sentence.

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