Rapamycin extends life- and health span because it slows aging
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Updated: May 8, 2026

Measuring Caenorhabditis elegans Life Span in 96 Well Microtiter Plates
Published on: March 18, 2011
1Department of Cell Stress Biology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, BLSC, L3-312, Elm and Carlton Streets, Buffalo, NY, 14263, USA.
Abstract:
Making headlines, a thought-provocative paper by Neff, Ehninger and coworkers claims that rapamycin extends life span but has limited effects on aging. How is that possibly possible? And what is aging if not an increase of the probability of death with age. I discuss that the JCI paper actually shows that rapamycin slows aging and also extends lifespan regardless of its direct anti-cancer activities. Aging is, in part, MTOR-driven: a purposeless continuation of developmental growth. Rapamycin affects the same processes in young and old animals: young animals' traits and phenotypes, which continuations become hyperfunctional, harmful and lethal later in life.
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