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Low-Cal Diet Extends Life... As Long as You Don't Eat
There has been a lot of research recently showing that a restricted calorie diet can extend the lifespans of various creatures. Sadly, it seems that as soon as they start eating again, the benefits are lost.
Research also shows that eggs are bad for you .. no wait, make that good. Wait, here is a new study....
Who knows what to believe half the time? A low-calorie diet is good if you need to lose weight, plain and simple. Otherwise, eat the amount of calories you need to maintain your weight. It's not an exact science, but if you avoid the junk food and make half an effort to eat sensibly, there shouldn't be much to worry about.
We'll live longer if we don't eat, drink, smoke, fuck and so on...
/rumagent
But what is the point of having life if you don't live it? Boring people may live longer, but they live less.
Can anyone really usefully apply this information to their lives? I don't mean this sarcastically, but in order to practically apply what was learned in this article, we'd have to know our date of death given our current diet. Then, 48 hours before the date of death (assuming we work the same as a fruit fly, which I doubt), we would begin our life-extending diet.
Maybe when we reach a day where we can tell our date of death and are able to keep any permanent damage from happening in the meantime, ie: a heart attack, kidney damage, etc, this would be useful.
On top of that, I didn't see a mention as to what kind of calories the fruit flies were being fed. Does a person who has 1200 calories of McDonalds a day vs someone who has 1200 calories of fruits/veggies/grains a day get the same "armour" effect?
So as it is now, the message is: Restrict your calorie intake NOW and you might live longer. We can't say if you were going to die at 25 given your diet or 90, but start NOW.
In other news: Not skydiving, driving, and living near a coal plant can extend your life.
That brings up another issue... when does life stop being worth living?
This is the question that the euthanasia folks would dearly love society to answer... but they can't; it's an individual decision. This is part of the drive behind people getting living wills, durable powers of attorney for healthcare, and advance directive, etc.
I'm not quite to mid-life, without a single health problem. I run, work out, don't smoke, or drink to excess... and I have a living will, AND advance directives. Why? Because, as a physician, I have SEEN life that's not worth living (at least it wouldn't be for me), and I would never want to get to that point. I encourage people, even healthy ones, to think about a living will... and to have the necessary conversations with their loved ones and significant others. Once you're critically ill/vegitative, unable to make that choice for yourself, and others are trying to deal with the emotional trauma of your incapacitation... that is NOT the time to attempt an objective conversation about it.
Yes, you can diet, and deprive yourself of all the "good things" in life, but is that really a life worth living, particularly if it only buys you a small, arbitrary gain? Again, it's an individual decision.
I think I'll keep eating my cheeseburgers.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
On my "lifesyle" change I had lost 60 pounds. I wobbled a bit and gained 5 back, but I'l losing 1-2 pounds a week again.
There is one things that keeps getting hammered into my head.
We don't need all the food we eat to survive or even be full. Once your stomach learns what it needs, it won't keep asking for more more more.
People with the "supersize" this and the "extra large" that are slowly killing themselves each time they order more than they need.
But let's face it. I'd rather die in my 60's then to live 20 years longer in a nursing home.
Just remember slashdotters, you can have ONE slice of pizza for dinner and still be ok for your daily caloric intake.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
How was this post "Informative"? Read the article, folks! The "diet" in question has nothing to do with weight loss. It has to do with length of life.
A study on dogs showed a 16% increase in life span for a calorie restricted diet -- thats a couple of extra dog years or perhaps decade or two of more life for a person. Sounds good, right? The problem was that the dogs had to eat 25% less than normal to get 16% more life than normal.
As someone who enjoys his kibble, I would argue that less chow = lower quality of life. So for 25% less quality of life, I get 16% more quantity of life. Sounds like a bad deal to me.
Moreover, the report said nothing about the energy levels of these poor long-starving mutts -- do starved creatures have any energy for fun and games? Due to the realities of physiology, I'd bet that a 25% reduction in energy input leads to a more that 25% reduction in energy available for discretionary, fun activities. On a restricted diet, a greater fraction of the meager intake is diverted to basic maintenance of the body.
I'm not saying that obesity is not a real killer of both quantity and quality of life. I'm only saying that restricted calorie diets come with tradeoffs.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I think that this is fairly non-obvious.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Don't forget to get up and move every now and then, as well. People don't realize that this is a major factor in health. Why does the Atkins diet work for so many people? Because you don't need carbohydrates if you sit in an office all day. The food pyramid should practically say, "For an active lifestyle."
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Research showing the life extending benefits of a low calorie diet has been known for a long while. What wasn't known was exactly why it works. One leading theory is that eating food (which contains oxidants) led to the gradual breakdown of cells and other important biological structures. This study seems to suggest otherwise.
If the reduction in the aging process was simply caused by a reduction in oxidation of cells, that means you wouldn't expect to see the same benefit for someone who suddenly went on a restricted calorie diet. That changes the focus to suggest that restricting the diet triggers biological pathways within the organism that has this protective effect.
It may be something very simple, or it may be far more complex. Reduced diet organisms tend to not reproduce and generally slow down. It could be that simply being able to reproduce can lead to forms of mortality that shortens lifespan (e.g. it causes cancer, takes energy away from cell repair, or something else). If it's something that basic, I could see a drug therapy that everyone starts taking after a certain age that switches people's metabolism into "restricted calorie" mode, even if they're eating normally.
Of course, these things are rarely that simple. Even if it was possible to create such a drug, it may simply make people feel too bad (starving isn't usually fun). The few individuals who have decided to go on a restricted calorie diet tend to have pretty poor quality of life, not being able to do really active things or enjoy a meal.
Finally, the research I've seen that relates to long-lived men tend to have one thing in common. They are all in excellent physical shape, regularly exercising an excessive amount. Women evidently have more flexability and don't have to be quite so active, but men seem to need a large amount of physical exercise. It could be that there are two different paths to longevity, one involving eating little and staying still, and the other eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly. Me, I'm going with the second approach. Food tastes too good to me.
(and yes, I do have a master's degree in biology, though it is collecting dust these days)
I think some of the people here are missing the point of the research.
Scientists have known that restricting your intake of food helps leads to a longer lifetime. Note that the emphasis is not on eating correctly or better, but just less. Based on my limited biochemistry/metabolism knowledge, this is thought to be a consequence of how your GI system breaks down food and the long-term effect of the potent chemical processes on your body; this is also briefly restated in the article.
Where this differs is that they have shown that benefits can be had at any time in an organism's life cycle, indicating that something else is afoot. So no, this is not yet another study that says you should go on the Atkins/grapefruit/carrot soup/wicker chair & bagels diet.
how much "living" are you really going to be accomplishing after 80, and based on what standard would you define it?
I've met some pretty spry 70-80yo folks... if you take care of yourself your whole life, you really can extend it in a quality way... I truly believe that.
However, you will not be living the same way you are now. Simple age will intervene at some point; virtually everyone develops medical problems if they live long enough. Even if you didn't work at a nuclear plant, you receive enough background radiation during your life that cancer is always a possibility... genetic damage accumulates. Osteoarthritis will set in eventually, it's a wear-and-tear phenomenon that will get you if you live long enough. Your bowels may not function like they once did (never underestimate the value of a properly functioning GI tract). Your prostate will gradually enlarge (eventually necessitating a procedure to open it up). Your eyesight and hearing may start to decline. You may outlive many of your friends (this can be real problem for the octogenarian+ group, and contributes to isolation, depression, etc). You may develop a heart attack or stroke (much of the body's cholesterol level is genetic, and only partially affected by drugs and diet).
Simply put, living may not be as fun when you are 80+ years of age. This sounds cliche`, but moderation may simply be the key to the whole game. Enjoy yourself, but don't go nuts... that way you'll live a long time (barring genetic defects and accidents), and you'll have plenty of stories about your adventures to bore your grandkids.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Okay... we've uncovered yet another truth in nature... organisms are designed to withstand famine.
Although the human intellect has improved over the millenia, the genetic script for our bodies has been nearly unchanged since the last ice ages. We only see organisms today that can resist famine because evolution has weeded out those strains that couldn't survive. If the creature can't find food or water, it's in the best interest to "pause" some life functions so you can survive until nourishment can be found.
Our bodies are evolved to be fat-storage machines; we have to, because nature can never guarantee the next meal. Our noses, though not as good as some other creatures, are still very receptive to spoiled food. Salt tastes good because our body needs it for cellular processes. Sugar tastes good because it's high energy "food" rare in nature.
But we've broken the cycle. Our insulin proceses the sugars, but never before has so much sugar been available, so now we see diabetes where our insulin receptors are over-exposed and develop a tolerance. We still have fight-or-flight mechanisms, but most of us live such a mundane existance, we release stress chemicals over the slightest event. Then we try these starvation diets, and our bodies don't burn the fat, because it thinks there's real hard times ahead, not realizing we have more food than we can eat.
It's a battle of intellect over evolved chemistry... but slowly we understand what is really going on behind the scenes, and with knowledge comes the power to correct it.
There are some researchers who beleive they've found the mechanism for this.
When the organism is stressed by lack of food, genes that encode heat shock proteins are activated. HSPs are used when a cell is overtemp, or otherwise stressed, to repair damage to the DNA due to the stress.
The thinking is this: an organism is getting too few calories. The cells start making HSPs due to the stress. The HSPs soak up free radicals, as well as repairing DNA damage. Since the lack of calories is not causing undo damage to the DNA (unlike heat), the net result is more damage due to other environmental effects (radiation, replication errors, toxins) is undone.
In short, the organism's metabolism set to allow it to survive beyond the "famine" to maximize the chances of being able to reproduce once food is available.
The researchers have some good candidate genes for the proteins, and perhaps one day may be able to stimulate the production of these proteins without the need to starve ourselves.
Now, whether the world needs a bunch of long-lived , fat, self-indulgant slobs is another question for which many of the residents of this forum are curiously well-equipped to argue.
www.eFax.com are spammers
...if you move seminal fluid daily by whatever means necessary.
You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.
"At that point, it will become possible to slowly roll back the age of the body as, for example, 46th generation smooth muscle cells divide and become 17th generation smooth muscle cells. Over a period of several years your body would effectively become younger"
This assumes that telomeres are the only thing that cause aging. There may be other as yet unknows or misunderstood processes that cause aging.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Sounds like someone needs to make a trip to the local methamphetamine dealer.
Seriously, you sound just like alot of old-school, long time speed users. Personally I enjoy food, and if you eat slowly, you never get so full that you get miserable and become worthless for the hours following a meal. When you wait until you're famished before you eat, then you wolf down your meal too fast, so fast that you don't think you're full yet, so you eat more.
Fast food is the product and bane of America. Slow down.
They could use it up faster by proessing the normal amount of food, or use it up at a slower rate with the calorie restricted diet.
Isn't the whole point of this article that it doesn't seem to work this way anyway? Once the flies are off the diet, it's as if they vere never on it in the first place, and would only live a normal lifespan. On the other hand, if they get on the diet late, they would get the same benefits as the ones who had been on it their whole life.
Assume you eat 25% less and gain 16% more lifetime. But you gain that 25% for reuse too!
Assume you eat 25% less but insteadm, not wasting that time - have 25% more sex thanks to saved pleasure time. Plus another 16% more sex thanks to prolonged life.
25% less food, 41% more sex, seems like a bargain to me!!!
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