What's the Most Effective Rapamycin Anti-Aging Dosage for Pets?

Rapamycin is generally considered the best and most proven approach to extending life in our pets (and in us humans for that matter), but it has been difficult to find rapamycin dosing information for pets that you can trust. 

In this blog post, I will give the current rapamycin dosing recommendations for both dogs and cats, along with a few tips for how to get the most benefit from rapamycin for your pet.

First, is rapamycin an effective anti-aging drug for pets?

Rapamycin has been proven to extend lifespan in all species studied to date, and early evidence suggests the same benefit for our pets. The primary ways rapamycin extends life are by reducing inflammation and by reducing cancer incidence, two huge benefits. 

Rapamycin for dogs is the cornerstone of the Dog Aging Project, while rapamycin for cats is actively being studied for benefits in treating chronic kidney disease at several veterinary colleges. Rapamycin has also been proven to help reduce periodontal disease and even to slow hearing loss in older individuals.  

Rapamycin is a very safe drug at the dosages recommended in this article.

Here’s what you should know about rapamycin dosage

To be clear, we do not yet know the OPTIMAL dosage of rapamycin in any species, including humans, dogs, and cats. What we DO know, though, are doses of rapamycin proven both safe and beneficial in dogs and cats, and those are the dosages we’ll discuss in this blog post.

Rapamycin anti-aging dosage for dogs

There are two different dosing recommendations for rapamycin for dogs, both based upon studies by Dr. Matt Kaeberlein. In his original study at UW, his team found a rapamycin dosage of 0.1 mg/kg given 3x weekly to be very safe and to show benefits in both cardiac disease and in reducing inflammation. This dosage translates into the following rapamycin dosage table for dogs:

• Dogs 10-11 lbs should get 0.5 mg of rapamycin given 3x weekly with food.
• Dogs 20-22 lbs should get 1.0 mg of rapamycin given 3x weekly with food
• Dogs 40-44 lbs should get 2.0 mg of rapamycin given 3x weekly with food
• Dogs 60-66 lbs should get 3.0 mg of rapamycin given 3x weekly with food

In the Dog Aging Project, Dr. Kaeberlein is using a rapamycin dosage of 0.15 mg/kg given once weekly – ie, a HIGHER rapamycin dose given LESS frequently. He has stated that this change was made more for the convenience of pet owners than for any scientific reason. This dosage translates into the following rapamycin dosage table for dogs.

• Dogs 10-11 lbs should get 0.75 mg of rapamycin once weekly with food
• Dogs 20-22 lbs should get 1.5 mg of rapamycin once weekly with food
• Dogs 40-44 lbs should get 3.0 mg of rapamycin once weekly with food
• Dogs 60-66 lbs should get 4.5 mg of rapamycin once weekly with food.

As we learn more about rapamycin for dogs, these dosages may very well change, but both of the rapamycin dosages mentioned above have been proven very safe in our patients to date.

Rapamycin anti-aging dosage for cats

Our current recommendation of rapamycin dosage for cats is based upon the Trivium study of rapamycin in the treatment of early hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in cats. In this study, they showed that an optimal dose of rapamycin for cats was 0.3 mg per kg given once weekly. This translates into the following rapamycin dosage table for cats:

• Cats up to 5 lbs should get 0.7 mg of rapamycin given once weekly with food
• Cats up to 10 lbs should get 1.4 mg of rapamycin given once weekly with food
• Cats up to 15 lbs should get 2.1 mg of rapamycin given once weekly with food

Is there an approved dosage for humans yet?

While we have current dosing recommendations for the use of rapamycin in human transplant medicine, there are no “official” dosage recommendations for longevity in humans. The primary reason for this is that we don’t yet have an objective aging biomarker to measure, so we cannot compare the benefits of different dosage regimens.

What else should pet owners know about rapamycin dosing for their pets?

Laboratory studies have shown that rapamycin powder is degraded by the levels of acid typically found in human stomachs. While the stomachs of our dogs and cats are not QUITE as acidic as our own, it’s logical to assume that this same concern exists for rapamycin in dogs and cats. 

There are several workarounds to the problem of rapamycin degradation by stomach acidity. These include the following:

• Pre-dosing with an antacid such as Pepcid or Prilosec before rapamycin administration
• Giving rapamycin as an oil-based suspension or with supplementary olive oil to limit its exposure to stomach acid
• Encapsulation of rapamycin in acid-resistant capsules before administration
• The use of generic Rapamune tablets from human medicine, which have a delayed-release coating on them

At Helping Pets Live Longer, we have been using acid-resistant capsules in our rapamycin for dogs for a couple of years but are now switching over to the generic Rapamune tablets for this reason.

Looking to combat aging in your pet? Rapamycin is the solution

At this time, rapamycin for dogs and cats appears to be the very best way to safely extend our pets’ lives. At Helping Pets Live Longer, we use rapamycin as the cornerstone of our longevity strategy for pets, along with precision medicine, supplements, and other longevity drugs like acarbose and metformin.