Everolimus dosage and evidence
Written by Aaron CuhaReviewed Sep 2026
The short answer
Everolimus is the rapamycin copy behind the first believable human result in ageing research. In older adults, it improved the immune response to a flu vaccine compared with a dummy pill.
Evidence grade for Everolimus: Strong. The rule: at least two finished studies in people, and at least 1,000 people who took it. The sum on this page: 3 completed trials, 1,024 people given it. A grade counts how much has been done to people, not whether it works.
- People given it
- 1,024
- Human studies
- 3
- Found nothing
- 0
Dose
Approved medicine. No human dose established for unlabelled uses
Labeled amounts sit on the prescribing information. This page records what trials measured, not a personal dose.
FDA-approved as Afinitor for several cancers, and as Zortress to prevent organ transplant rejection. Not approved for any ageing use, including ageing of the immune system.
No first-hand reports gathered yet. That is a gap in what we have collected, not a finding that nothing has been reported.
Goal pages: Immune system and inflammation
In plain English
In plain English, from Aaron
This is how I would explain it to a friend. The evidence, with the numbers, is further down the page.
Everolimus is an approved cancer and transplant drug. It is a close copy of rapamycin, and it blocks a growth switch called mTOR. In ageing research it is famous for one trial. Low doses helped older adults respond better to a flu vaccine.
What people take it for
- Slowing ageing, like rapamycin.
- A stronger immune system in older age.
- Its approved uses: some cancers and preventing transplant rejection.
What studies in people showed
The biggest test of this idea used a related drug, RTB101, in 1,024 older adults. People on the drug got chest and airway illness just as often as people on a dummy. Before that, the smaller studies looked good. In 2014, low doses improved older adults' response to a flu vaccine. In 2018, a follow up reported better immune function and fewer infections. No human trial has looked at lifespan. At cancer doses it causes mouth sores and high blood sugar, among other problems.
What people report
Reports, not study results
The good
- Low doses improved flu vaccine response in older adults in a trial against a dummy.
The bad
- At cancer doses: mouth sores, a weaker immune system, high blood sugar, high blood fats and lung inflammation.
- The big follow up trial of the idea found no benefit.
Where these come from: From the trials and drug record on this page. We have not collected user reports on this one yet.
My bottom line
My opinion: it is a real drug with real side effects, and the idea behind it failed its biggest test. If you are curious, that is a talk with a doctor who will check your blood. Not a self experiment.
An opinion, not a finding. I am a coach, not a doctor.
What it has been measured to do
Measured in people
Goals Everolimus has been tested for in people, biggest studies first. We count only what the studies on this page say, so the real numbers may be higher.
- Immune functionno headcount stated · 1 study
35 of the 36 indexed goals have no study of any kind behind Everolimus
No study in people, animals or cells on this page reports a result for these. That does not prove Everolimus does nothing for them. It does mean anything you have heard about Everolimus and one of these did not come from a study cited here.
Show full evidence
What is Everolimus?
Everolimus is the rapamycin copy behind the first believable human result in ageing research. In older adults, it improved the immune response to a flu vaccine compared with a dummy pill.
Everolimus matters to this site for a reason that has nothing to do with its approved uses. It is an approved cancer and transplant drug. It was also the drug used in the first trial that took the mTOR longevity idea into people and got a good answer.
That 2014 trial gave low doses to older adults and measured how well they responded to a flu vaccine. That is a fair stand-in for how the immune system ages. The response improved. A follow up reported better immune function and fewer infections. In a field where almost everything rests on mice, that was the strongest human signal anyone had.
What happened next is the important part. It happened to a related drug, RTB101, not to this one. The large final-stage trial of that programme, in 1,024 older adults, failed. Everolimus is where the human mTOR story starts, and the story does not end well.
How does Everolimus work?
Everolimus is a copy of rapamycin, a so-called rapalog. It grabs a protein called FKBP12, and together they block mTORC1. mTORC1 is the cell's main sensor for food and growth signals. When it is on, cells build protein and hold back their cleanup system, called autophagy. When it is blocked, cleanup and stress resistance go up. Eating less works through this same pathway. That is the whole reason to expect blocking mTOR to affect ageing. Everolimus differs from rapamycin by one small chemical group. That makes it absorb better by mouth and leave the body faster, which is why it is easier to dose now and then instead of every day.
What have studies in people found about Everolimus?
A large record as an approved cancer and transplant drug. It also has the only good trials in ageing research that tested a drug against a dummy in people. The programme behind them then failed in its final-stage trial.
- Approved for several cancers and to prevent transplant rejection. Its dosing and side effects are well known.
- The programme's final-stage trial, using the related drug RTB101, did not cut chest and airway illness in 1,024 older adults.
- A follow up across several centres reported better immune function and fewer infections.
- A trial in older adults found low dose mTOR blocking improved the response to a flu vaccine, compared with a dummy.
- At cancer doses, known risks include mouth sores, a weaker immune system, high blood sugar, high blood fats and lung inflammation that is not caused by infection.
- No human trial has looked at lifespan.
What this does not tell you: The good trials measured stand-in and short term things, like vaccine response and people's own reports of infections, in fairly small groups. The programme's own large final-stage trial is the reason to hold those results loosely. Cancer doses and the low, now-and-then doses used in ageing research are really different treatments, with different risks. The safety record at cancer doses does not carry over to long term use at low doses.
The state of the research
Read the human mTOR programme as one story, not three papers. The biggest trial came last, and it found nothing. In 2021, a final-stage trial in 1,024 older adults found that 26 percent caught a chest or airway illness with symptoms on the drug, against 25 percent on a dummy pill. The smaller trials before it had all looked good. In 2014, a trial found that everolimus improved older adults' response to a flu vaccine. That was the first believable sign in people that blocking this pathway could improve something that declines with age. In 2018, a follow up reported better immune function and fewer infections. A mid-stage trial, published with the big one in 2021, cut chest and airway illness. And in both of the 2021 trials, the antiviral genes the drug was built to switch on did switch on. The drug did what it was designed to do inside the body, and the benefit vanished. That is the best argument on this site for not trusting a moving lab marker.
The evidence, in charts
Fig. 1a · how many people
1,024people, across 1 study in people cited here
| Study | People | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Lancet Healthy Longevity 2021 | 1,024 | 100% |
The whole total is one study of 1,024. Counts are the number of people each study on this page says it signed up. That includes studies that only watched people and gave nobody the compound. 2 more studies in people give no headcount and are not counted here. Studies still signing people up are left out, and only studies cited on this page are counted.
Fig. 1b · evidence mix
All 3 sources here are studies in people.
- Study in people · done in people3100%
Counted from the list of sources on this page. It counts only what we cite, so there may be more studies out there. A review counts once, however many studies it sums up.
Fig. 2 · evidence over time
The studies cover 3 different years, 2014 to 2021, counted from the list of sources on this page.
Fig. 3 · legal status at a glance
US
Approved
UK
Approved
AU
Approved
CA
Approved
Approved in all four countries shown. This is what the law says, not a verdict on the science. See Legal status below for the full text and any notes.
Fig. 5 · what the molecule is
- Kind of compound
- Small molecule
- Molecule weight
- 958.2 Da. A macrolide, not a peptide.
- Half-life
- About 30 hoursLong, 1 to 7 days
- Chain length
- None on file
Half-life as stated on file: Roughly 30 hours, substantially shorter than rapamycin's 60 or more, which is the practical reason it was chosen for intermittent low-dose geroscience trials.
No amino acid sequence is on file for Everolimus, which is expected: a small molecule is not built from amino acids.
The studies we cite
- Study in people2014mTOR inhibition improves immune function in the elderly
This is the trial that made ageing research look testable in people. Older volunteers took a low dose of an mTOR blocking drug before a flu jab. Their immune response to the vaccine came out stronger than on a dummy. It is one vaccine response in one group of older adults, not a measure of health or of lifespan. The doses were tolerated reasonably well. Everything that followed in this field points back to this result.
The first randomised human trial to take the mTOR longevity hypothesis to an age-related functional endpoint. Low-dose mTOR inhibition improved influenza vaccination response in older adults. This is the result that made human geroscience trials credible.
- Study in people2018TORC1 inhibition enhances immune function and reduces infections in the elderly
The follow up was larger and the result held. Older adults took a low dose combination of two mTOR blocking drugs for six weeks. They reported fewer infections over the following year and their immune response improved. This is the strongest positive result the programme produced. The large trial that came next did not repeat it, and that trial is on the RTB101 page. Read the two together, never this one alone.
The multicentre follow-up reporting enhanced immune function and reduced infections in older adults with TORC1 inhibition. Together with the 2014 trial this is the positive half of the programme, and the phase 3 that followed is on the RTB101 page.
- Study in people2021Targeting the biology of ageing with mTOR inhibitors to improve immune function in older adults: phase 2b and phase 3 randomised trials
Tested properly at full scale, the drug did not work. A mid sized trial had looked promising, so a much larger one was run in over a thousand older adults. The same share of people caught a chest or airway illness on the drug as on the dummy. The biological effect was still there. Antiviral genes switched on in both trials, exactly as the theory predicted. The mechanism held and the benefit did not. A trial this size would have found a real effect.
The end of the arc. Phase 2b was positive and the 1,024-patient phase 3 was not: 26 percent against 25 percent with clinically symptomatic respiratory illness, odds ratio 1.07, p = 0.65. Interferon-induced antiviral genes were significantly upregulated in both trials, so the mechanism held while the benefit did not.
Common questions
Has Everolimus been tested in people?
Yes. 1,024 people given it across 3 completed trials cited here, 0 of which found nothing. Everolimus is the rapamycin copy behind the first believable human result in ageing research. In older adults, it improved the immune response to a flu vaccine compared with a dummy pill.
What is the Everolimus dosage?
Approved medicine. No human dose established for unlabelled uses. Labeled amounts sit on the prescribing information. This page records what trials measured, not a personal dose. FDA-approved as Afinitor for several cancers, and as Zortress to prevent organ transplant rejection. Not approved for any ageing use, including ageing of the immune system.
Is Everolimus FDA-approved?
FDA-approved as Afinitor for several cancers, and as Zortress to prevent organ transplant rejection. Not approved for any ageing use, including ageing of the immune system.
Is everolimus better than rapamycin for longevity?
No trial compares them on anything to do with ageing. Everolimus leaves the body faster. Half is gone in roughly 30 hours, against 60 or more for rapamycin. That makes now-and-then dosing easier, and it is why everolimus was picked for the human immune ageing trials. Rapamycin has by far the stronger lifespan record in mice.
Did it actually improve immune function in older people?
In trials against a dummy, yes, on vaccine response and reported infections. The catch is that the same programme's 1,024 person final-stage trial found no drop in chest and airway illness. It still switched on the antiviral genes it was aimed at. Treat the good results as a signal that did not survive proper testing.
Can I take it for ageing?
It is a prescription drug that weakens the immune system and has real side effects. Those include mouth sores, high blood sugar, raised blood fats and lung inflammation. It is not approved for ageing. Anyone thinking about it needs a prescriber who will watch for those problems. They should also know how the programme's final-stage trial turned out first.