The Role of Rapamycin in Healthspan Extension via the Delay of Organ Aging

Abstract

Aging can not only shorten a healthy lifespan, but can also lead to multi-organ dysfunction and failure. Anti-aging is a complex and worldwide conundrum for eliminating the various pathologies of senility. The past decade has seen great progress in the understanding of the aging-associated signaling pathways and their application for developing anti-aging approaches. Currently, some drugs can improve quality of life. The activation of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling is one of the core and detrimental mechanisms related to aging; rapamycin can reduce the rate of aging, improve age-related diseases by inhibiting the mTOR pathway, and prolong lifespan and healthspan effectively. However, the current evidence for rapamycin in lifespan extension and organ aging is fragmented and scattered. In this review, we summarize the efficacy and safety of rapamycin in prolonging a healthy lifespan by systematically alleviating aging in multiple organ systems, i.e., the nervous, urinary, digestive, circulatory, motor, respiratory, endocrine, reproductive, integumentary and immune systems, to provide a theoretical basis for the future clinical application of rapamycin in anti-aging.

Keywords: Adverse effects; Healthspan; Organ aging; Rapamycin; mTOR signaling.