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Research Paper|Volume 17, Issue 8|pp 2079—2088

What is the clinical evidence to support off-label rapamycin therapy in healthy adults?

Jacob M. Hands1, Michael S. Lustgarten2, Leigh A. Frame3, Bradley Rosen4
  • 1The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington DC, DC 20037, USA
  • 2Metabolism and Basic Biology of Aging, Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts University, Boston, MA 02111, USA
  • 3The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington DC, DC 20037, USA
  • 4mTOR Medicine Practitioner, Los Angeles, CA 90212, USA
Received: August 26, 2024Accepted: July 2, 2025Published: August 7, 2025
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206300

Copyright: © 2025 Hands et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Low dose rapamycin therapy has been proposed as a longevity candidate in healthy aging adults. We present a review of the evidence for low dose rapamycin and rapalog therapies in healthy human adults and model the findings of one cohort study using the PhenoAge model. Despite the preclinical evidence supporting the use of sirolimus to enhance mean and maximal lifespan, the data in humans have yet to establish that rapamycin, or its analogues, is a proven seno-therapeutic that can delay aging in healthy older adults. Rapamycin and rapalogs warrant further study with larger cohorts to better establish their contribution to human aging.