Is Rapamycin plus acarbose legal in the United Kingdom?

No person has taken these two together in any study. In mice started at 9 months, typical lifespan rose 28 percent in females and 34 to 37 percent in males. That is the biggest pooled gain the NIA mouse lifespan program has published, and it worked at all three labs in both sexes. In males it beat earlier rapamycin-only runs. In females it did not.

Rapamycin and acarbose are the two drugs with the most repeated lifespan wins in the NIA mouse lifespan program. In 2017 the program fed them together.

How it works: Rapamycin blocks mTORC1, a growth switch. Acarbose blocks gut enzymes that break down starch, so blood sugar rises less after a meal.

Approval history: Both drugs are FDA-approved for other uses (sirolimus for transplant rejection and other uses; acarbose for type 2 diabetes). The combination is not approved for anything and has never been given to people in a study. The lifespan result is in mice. It was compared with each drug alone from earlier studies, not tested side by side at the same time.

Licenses medicines for sale in the UK. A compound without a licence to be sold (a marketing authorisation) is an unlicensed medicine. The law only lets it reach people through a prescriber, under the specials scheme (unlicensed medicines made for one patient's needs). It cannot be sold as a research product.

The legal category above is how The Longevity Archive reads Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency listings for Rapamycin plus acarbose on the reviewed date. It is not a legal opinion. Rules change. Bringing a compound into the country, prescribing it and owning it can each be treated differently. Check with the agency before you act on anything here.

Check MHRA directly

Whether Rapamycin plus acarbose is banned in sport is set by the World Anti-Doping Code and by military rules, not by its legal status in the United Kingdom. Before you compete or get tested, look up Rapamycin plus acarbose by name on the Prohibited List, or look up a named product in Global DRO. Under the World Anti-Doping Code, category S0 bans, at all times, any drug-like substance that meets two tests. No other section of the List covers it. And no government health regulator anywhere has a current approval for it as a treatment in people. Many substances that are approved somewhere are banned by name in another section. So approval does not mean a substance is allowed in sport.

• WADA Prohibited List
• Global DRO (check a named product)
• USADA (US athletes)
• Operation Supplement Safety (US service members)

The rules you compete or serve under decide this, not this page.