Matt recently attended the 52nd annual meeting of the American Aging Association in Madison, Wisconsin and met with several people doing fascinating work in or adjacent to the geroscience field.

One of these was Kevin White, physician at longevity-focused clinic Prime Health Associates in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Kevin spent two decades in emergency medicine before obtaining fellowship training in integrative and functional medicine, nutrition, and age management. He complete residency training in emergency medicine and trauma at Washington University in St. Louis, and received his M.D. from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. Matt describes him as "one of the few longevity docs who actually comes to the science meetings to learn more about the science of aging."

Ultimately, the geroscience field is nothing without the medical professionals who bring new discoveries to bedside. So we really enjoyed sitting down with Kevin and hearing his thoughts on interventions such as stem cell therapy as well as his questions about the geroscience field, which prompted a wide-ranging discussion of rapamycin, the hallmarks of aging, body composition, and more.

Check out the links below for further information and/or reading about some of the things we discussed in this podcast episode. Note that we do not necessarily endorse or agree with the content of these readings, but present them as supplementary material that may deepen your understanding of the topic after you listen to our podcast. This list is in no way exhaustive, but it’s a good start!

Testing Efficacy of Administration of the Antiaging Drug Rapamycin in a Nonhuman Primate, the Common Marmoset

Adam Salmon, whom Matt mentions in the podcast, is a coauthor on this paper about rapamycin administration in the common marmoset, a small-sized nonhuman primate. Marmosets received rapamycin for a short time period (3 months) and a long time period (14 months). The marmosets did not appear to suffer from clinical anemia, fibrotic lung changes, or mouth ulcers as a result of rapamycin dosing, and death rates did not differ from expected death rates given the marmosets' ages.

Long-term treatment with the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin has minor effect on clinical laboratory markers in middle-aged marmosets.

This study, which Adam Salmon also coauthored, examined the effects of rapamycin administration on marmoset blood biomarkers, with a view to understanding how rapamycin might affect marmoset aging. Nine months of rapamycin dosing had little impact on cellular blood counts, and rapamycin concentrations were higher in male marmosets compared to female marmosets. The authors concluded that this particular dose and duration of rapamycin administration likely does not produce detrimental effects on hematological biomarkers in marmosets.

Evaluation of off-label rapamycin use to promote healthspan in 333 adults

Matt and colleagues, including Optispan Chief Medical Officer George Haddad, collected self-reported data from over 300 adults with a history of off-label rapamycin use to capture data about the drug's potential side effects. The only side effect that was significantly more prevalent in rapamycin users compared to non-users was the presence of mouth sores, and several side effects typically associated with rapamycin use such as eye pain and anxiety occurred less frequently in rapamycin users than in non-users.

Rapamycin (AY-22,989), a new antifungal antibiotic I. Taxonomy of the producing streptomycete and isolation of the active principle

Published in 1975, this landmark paper describes the discovery of a new antifungal antibiotic called rapamycin, and characterizes rapamycin's morphological, physiological, and cultural properties and the streptomycete strain that produces it. It details the isolation of the streptomycete strain AY B-994 from an Easter Island soil sample as well as the strain's antimicrobial activity.

A masked, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial evaluating safety and the effect on cardiac function of low-dose rapamycin in 17 healthy client-owned dogs

Matt coauthored this paper exploring the effects of rapamycin administration on canine heart function. Seventeen healthy dogs received low-dose rapamycin over a six-month period. The researchers found no significant change, positive or negative, in the dogs' cardiac function, and no adverse effects. Some dog owners reported "positive changes" in their dogs' behavior with rapamycin administration, but these changes were subjective and difficult to characterize.