Antibiotic Rapamycin Shown to Extend Life in Mice

The rapamycin finding was reported online Wednesday in the journal Nature by researchers at three institutions working in parallel. The teams were led by David E. Harrison of the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, ME; Richard E. Miller of the University of Michigan; and Randy Strong of the University of Texas Health Science Center.

Naturally this is not something anyone should try at home, yet. Don't pester your doctor for rapamycin or try to get rapamycin through illicit means, either. Naturally rapamycin, like other antibiotics, will have side effects as well as the potential of creating supergerms.

For one, researchers do not know how rapamycin achieves its life-extending results. Interestingly, most things that prolong life in mice, including a low-calorie diet, need to be started early in life to show any effect. This was not the case in rapamycin.

The researchers found that the mice fed rapamycin were not getting the proper dose. By that time the mice were elderly. Nonetheless, life span increased by 14 percent in the females and 9 percent in the males.

“It’s no longer irresponsible to say that following these up could lead to medicines that increase human life span by 10, 20 or 30 percent,” Dr. Miller said.