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Longevity supplements › Rapamycin and Aging › Studies

Randomized trial · measured lab tests or safety

Trial in 36 adults with sun-aged skin: rapamycin cream lowered an aged-cell marker

Chung and colleagues · GeroScience · 2019

Original title: Topical rapamycin reduces markers of senescence and aging in human skin: an exploratory, prospective, randomized trial.

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What the study found

Points to benefit

Topical rapamycin lowered skin p16INK4A protein, a sign of aged cells (P = 0.008), and raised collagen VII protein (P = 0.0077). Thirty-six people enrolled; nineteen stopped or were lost to follow-up.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
36 people · Adults over 40 with sun-aged skin and no major illness
What was tested
Rapamycin put on the skin vs placebo. Dose and length not given in abstract.
What it measured
Lab tests or markers
Trial registration
NCT03103893
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
GeroScience, 2019
Source
PubMed record 31761958. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Randomized: people were put into groups by chance, so the groups start out alike.
  • ✓Compared with a placebo, a dummy treatment.
  • –Small: 36 people. Small trials can miss real effects or find chance ones.
  • –Measured lab tests or markers, which stand in for aging and age-related decline. A better marker does not always mean better health.
  • •The PubMed record has no conflict-of-interest statement.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: aging and age-related decline

    3

    1 benefit, 1 mixed, 1 no difference

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    2

    2 no difference

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    2

    2 benefit

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  4. Population studies

    1

    1 no direction

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  6. Animals

    2

    2 benefit

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does rapamycin slow aging in people?”

Not shown in people.

Confidence: very low. Based on 16 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Few other papers sit on the same step, so there is little to compare it with.

Other papers on the same step

See all 16 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The reviewer corrected 3 fields after reading the abstract. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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