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.

Comments

Redefines lifetime.

[questamor]

Kind of redefines the term "lifetime" too

I mean hey, a complete starvation diet is one to last a lifetime!

(a very short lifetime)

Re:Redefines lifetime.

[SmallFurryCreature]

But if this was true then wouldn't mayflies (wich don't eat) live forever?

Re:There are links to sexual activity too

[Yokaze]

> Studies have shown that male animals (of various species) that are kept separated from females all their lifes can live up to 20% longer. In other words having no sex lets you live longer.

It may suprise some people, but being kept seperated from females doesn't mean just no sex. So I'd say, your second statement is not a valid conclusion from the studies figures.

Stress is a known life-shortener, so I'd assume that the associated stress with mating rituals and competition among male animals are more probable reasons than the act of mating itself.

Re:How useful is this information?

[TOGA! TOGA TOGA!]

Actually, this info is REALLY useful. Perhaps it is not useful to John Doe, but researchers can use this fly model to study and attempt to identify the causes of this effect. Because pesky organizations like PETA dont care about flies and they are cheap to work with, coming up with a fly system to study these effects is really important. the real question is how this reseach translates into humans. That is, does the fly model appropriately represent a physiological state in humans?

Atkins Diet

[Cpt_Kirks]

After my birthday next week, I am hoping to lose 50lbs using the very low carb Adkins type of diet. Our Unix God at work has lost 46lbs so far and kept it off.

No pizza, chips or donuts, but you can eat eggs and meat all day.

The bizzare thing is it lowers your cholesterol. My dads cardiologist has been on it for 6 months and his cholesterol has dropped 30%. Eating eggs and red meat.

I will miss bread and french (sorry, FREEDOM) fries, but it will be nice to be able to take a deep breath...

Re:Atkins Diet

[taliver]

In only a mild relation to the topic, but in direct response to your post...

My officemate went on Atkins and lost 30 or so pounds. Impressive. I don't think I could give up bread and pasta, however.

So instead I cut out all soda and french fries from my diet. That's it.

Now, I will say I had been consuming between 2 and 3 24oz Bottles of Mountain Dew a day, and would go through a 2 Liter bottle of Dew every other day at home at night. In the month since I quit soda I've probably saved $50 and have lost about 15-20 pounds. And it stays off.

I don't see myself drinking soda (daily) again. Many people on Atkins, do, however, slip back into wanting pizza and bread and rice and pastas. Just realize that whatever change you make to your diet needs to be permanent, and not "until I lose XX pounds".

Re:The Journal of Obvious Results?

[smallpaul]

You misunderstand. This has nothing to do with losing weight. It has nothing to do with exercising. It isn't even about improving your health.

It is about slowing the aging process using a currently unexplained side effect of low-calorie diets. There is a huge difference between eating well (which reduces your chances of life-threatening illnesses) and slowing down the body clock that causes aging.

According to these scientists, you could start this low-calorie diet late in life and still slow the aging process. This is totally different than deciding to stop eating fatty foods late in life when the damange has perhaps already been done. Obviously the two techniques need to go together for maximum results. It makes no sense to slow your aging process down if your arteries are full of fat.

congratulations

[The Tyro]

on your willpower... would that more people had the same drive to stay fit.

However, instead of willpower, people are going the bariatric surgery route... I've seen more TV news magazine reports recently about this trend than I've ever seen before. Danger, Will Robinson.

Apart from the obvious complications of surgery (bleeding, wound dehissence, infection, obstruction, etc, etc), stomach stapling changes your lifestyle permanently. Some of these things would be real burden for slashdotters... for instance:

You become nable to drink during meals (your stomach is so small after the surgery, it cannot hold both food AND drink)

Carbonated beverages are to be avoided (same reason as above... no Mountain Dew, no Jolt, no Bawls.)

No alcohol (beer will stretch your now-tiny stomach as much as regular carbonated beverages). Also, about half of consumed alcohol is broken down in the stomach via alcohol dehydrogenase... theoretically, you could find that your whiskey sours pack about double the punch as before (not necessarily a good thing).

You are also not necessarily done with surgery after your stapling. Ever see a person who has lost 150lbs or so? They have skin folds just hanging off of them... plastic surgery is required to get rid of the redundant skin. The potential also exists for nutritional deficiencies, like B-12. To be fair, the liver stores a fair quantity of B-12, so this might only show up 10-15 years down the road. Bottom line: The true long-term effects of this operation are not known.

I don't even know what to say to the people who purposely make themselves fatter so they can qualify for the surgery... it's madness.

Re:Quality vs. Quantity, Is it worth it?

[andykuan]

They tried it out on monkeys. Seems it lowered their body temperature and "fasting blood sugar and insulin levels." Not sure if the latter has anything to do with one's general energy level, but I'm certain having a lower body temperature means you'd feel cold all the time.

I remember reading an article about a group of people who are actually trying this diet out. They're the buzzkills we all imagined they'd be: they're always complaining about how cold it is, they're always grumpy, and they're munching on iceberg lettuce when they go out to eat with friends/family. It's sort of pathetic.

Re:an important point

[vidnet]

If you're If you're hungry and bored, would you get a snack or find something fun to do? If you're hungry and sleepy, would you get a snack or go to bed? If you're hungry and horny, would you get a snack or find a towelette?

Hunger is one of the strongest drives in human, and it overshadows much of what else you might be doing, so I'd agree that the quality of life would be drastically lowered by a very strict low-calorie diet.

Re:There are links to sexual activity too

[SmallFurryCreature]

Well no, the original poster is not entirly correct. I remember research wich looked at the difference between paired and non paired members of several species. Those animals who had a pair, IE lived together did have some extra stress during the beginning of the living together. However later on the stress levels dropped markedly as the animals could rely on each other. Sleep time showed the most drastic drop with heart beat and such going way down.

It has also been shown in humans that married males live a few years longer then single males. (not suprising considering bachelor habits).

How this really works

[Morris Schneiderman]

I published some of the initial, theoretical work behind this, in 1981 in a journal called Speculations in Science and Technology, vol. 4 no. 3. page 335.

It used to be 'common knowledge' that fully differentiated cells of a given tissue type would each live for a specific length of time and then die.

I argued that this was not so. I suggested that fully differentiated cells of a given tissue type would divide a specific number of times and then stop dividing (Hayflick Limit). I hypothesized the existence of a counter in each cell that kept track of how many more times that cell could divide. Today, those counters are called Tellomeres.

The reason you live longer on a low calorie diet is because your individual cells don't have the fuel to go through their life cycles as quickly. Give them the fuel and they speed up again.

So the idea of waiting until 48 hours before your natural dead would not extend your life by much at all. Sorry.

Tellomeres are like a chain of knots at one end of the DNA. Each time the DNA divides, there's one less knot on the chain. If the cell does not become cancerous, when there are no more knots, the cell ceases to divide. The real answer to life extension will be when we learn how to add knots back onto the Tellomeres.

I expect this problem to be solved within the next 15 years. 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.

Re:How this really works

[LordOfYourPants]

I argued that this was not so. I suggested that fully differentiated cells of a given tissue type would divide a specific number of times and then stop dividing (Hayflick Limit). I hypothesized the existence of a counter in each cell that kept track of how many more times that cell could divide. Today, those counters are called Tellomeres.

Does this statement contradict with the following statement from the article:

"It's been assumed that the reason things live longer when they diet is that there is a slowing down of age-related damage," Dr. Partridge said. But, she added, it now appears that cannot be true. "The system has no memory."

--

So the idea of waiting until 48 hours before your natural dead would not extend your life by much at all. Sorry.

I took that idea from:

In a detailed demographic analysis of life and death among 7,492 fruit flies, published today in Science magazine, Dr. Partridge and her colleagues discovered that the protective effect of dieting snaps into place within 48 hours, whether the diet starts early in life or late

To use the article's word of "armour", it seems to me that whether you wore this "armour" of dieting 10 years ago or 48 hours prior to your "natural" death is irrelevant.

Maybe a happy medium to bridge the idea of Tellomeres and what the article is saying is to say that the body ignores the "knot count" if you've restricted your diet. IANAB :)

Thanks for the response, though. Interesting stuff. You definitely deserve some modding up.

Re:How this really works

[Morris Schneiderman]

1. I have not read Dr. Partridge's research, so we may be taking things out of context, but if "The system has no memory" then when and why would anyone die, except from trauma?

2. Perhaps, 48 hours after going to low caloric intake, the cells slow down their metabolic rate. In that case, the 'life extension' value would seem to be some percent of your 'remaining life' at normal caloric input.

Re:How this really works

[darkstar2a]

Perhaps the reason this works the way is does is Darwinism at work.

If you have a species that is overconsuming (theoretically over eating or out eating other spieces) it could be necessary to eliminate that speicies (or individual) to keep the environment in balance.

We've only had the ability to transport massive amount of food for a very relatively short period of time. Way back in the past, species that overconsumed would have a tendancy to eat themselves to death. (no food = adapt, move or die). So perhaps the Telemeres and the information determined by this article come down to a basic fact that we are overlooking. We may be programmed specifically to eat at a level that should be able to be sustained in nature.

There is not doubt that Americans in particular are a culture that overeat as a norm (yes, please UltraSize that). Did you know that an original order of fries at McD's wasn't all that bad for you? but a traditional serving size was only 3oz.

Re:How this really works

[__aaedhn419]

When a cell divides, the progeny cells receive nearly identical copies of the parent cell's DNA, except with slightly shorter telomeres. (This is because the cell's protein machinery "loses" a tiny bit of DNA every time it replicates.) Once the telomeres are "used up", the DNA continues to get shorter, only now it starts to lose actual "important" DNA that controls how the cell functions. Not good.

You are correct in saying that most cells do not live very long, but this is because they are continually making almost-perfect copies of themselves. Unfortunately for us (fortunately for evolution) the process is not quite perfect.

Basically, telomeres exist as sort of "sacrificial" DNA to overcome an inherent "tradeoff" in the process of DNA replication. Once the telomeres are used up, cells begin to break down, and death usually quickly follows.

Oh, and to answer your next question :), telomeres in germ cells (e.g. eggs and sperm) are kept at the "right" length for a normal lifespan by special telomere-making proteins.

Read any Biochemistry text book...

[alchemist68]

Read any Biochemistry text book (Voet & Voet is/was a good one) on metabolism and you'll BEGIN to understand the foundation for the work just published. The lower the calories consumed, the less oxidation is taking place in our bodies. This is why junk food, Ho-Hos, Twinkies, bleached white bread, Softbatch cookies, gummy bears & worms, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and basically all modern refined sugars ARE BAD FOR YOU. These "foods" are pure energy and have little if any nutritional value. When these foods are consumed, the sugars enter the blood stream where insulin and sugars combine, enter our cells, and are metabolized. For some people, the sugars are converted to fat for later use. For others (including myself who is hypoglycemic) the sugars are burned immediately. What happens when you burn things? They (the fuels) oxidize, and our cells also sustain some oxidative damage, leading to decreased life span. What should you do to live a long high-quality and healthy life? Don't eat junk food, exercise, eat lots of fish and dark green leafy vegatables, take vitamins, and minimize the stress in your life. Eating beef is one of the fastest ways of getting iron into our bodies for preventing amemia. Taking iron vitamin supplements is very much less efficient since the iron isn't absorbed as well into the body. In beef the iron is bound in hemoglobin (blood). Our digestive enzymes are designed for tearing apart hemogloblin and efficiently extracting the iron from it. In vitamin form, iron is usually a salt and not very soluble in water, hence most of it passes right through the digestive system.

This study is not really surprising at all, but is very useful. It's just that someone finally took the time to do a research project and publish their findings.

it is under study

[john_uy]

I recently watched a tv show from National Geographic with the name Scientific American Frontiers : Fat and Happy (Episode Title.)

They said that you must get a low calorie (or measuring the average calorie for your daily needs like 2000 Calories) but *high* nutrition.

You do not just starve yourself but you will need to eat foods that have low caloric content but high vitamins and minerals.

They are still doing tests for mice and monkeys. They are still ongoing. They are comparing two groups with one having a regular diet and the other having a low calorie but high nutrition diet. Of course, the one having the higher nutrition and low calorie is doing better (because they are already old.)

I think it is not very difficult to follow a diet this way (maybe hard for Americans because of their lifestyle with too much fast food and fat full foods.) You can still enjoy eating good food but you must manage what you eat.

If you are going to start a diet, *consult a physician.* Based on the show, they will need to get your metabolic rate, etc, to determine your daily neeeds without starving you to death or getting you undernourished.

Re:Quality vs. Quantity, Is it worth it?

[cactopus]

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.

Obesity is not a real killer. Period. Lifestyle is the killer. You can genetically be quite fat but eat right and exercise and live way longer than thin people who don't eat as well. You could also starve and diet yourself to thinness (same person...) and live a MUCH shorter life because your f*ing with your natural system. Most people involved in the war on obesity are there because it makes them money... pure and simple... it's in a doctor's best interest to take a group of perfectly OK people with low self esteem and keep them working on unsolvable problems for life that line his pockets. He doesn't care if they live or die. Some doctors do care but they listen to the other doctors who don't and it rubs off... they read research funded by the diet industry and it rubs off even more... pretty soon they've formed their own hypotheses or opinions based on bad data. Look at just about every media-hyped article on health and you see critical flaws in the research method, heavy funding by the diet industry, and/or both. Just take any JAMA article on that subject and flip through the sources in the bibliography... go ahead... look them up in a University library... see what the real meaning of all quoted research is... you'd be surprised at the hare-brained conclusions the quoting article draws from each. Data they use to massage their own idea of the truth.

Fasting will prolong life

[lonemonk]

Theres nothing wrong with eating, but unhealthy diets (of which there are infinite combinations) are more dangerous than eating VERY little, or almost nothing at all. There are of course parameters not being taken into account in my post, but it simple terms, the less you need to eat to survive is likely to extend your life. No matter what you eat, if you eat like a bird (Some birds eat many times their weight, I'm only using this as common metaphor) and do not indulge in other damaging behaviours, you can expect to live longer than your insatiable food-soaked cousin.

Flatworm and fruitfly studies exist which show that extenstions to lifespan are possible by continually fasting the creatures and then feeding them a moderate amount to build them back to 'normal' size.

Eating a great amount of any food will kill you soon enough. Drinking too much water will kill you as well.

"Three square meals a day" is probably the stupidest thing I have ever had to live through.
I've fasted on at least 12 occassions, with anywhere from 6-14 days as the duration, and during the fast I have never felt better in all my life. Once food gets introduced, the brain stops working and the body begins to slow down.
I've never had a cavity for fucks sake, despite what some would call vitamin depletion. (I'm 33)

I'm not trying to sound righteous, I just think that food intake self-regulation is a massive problem in ALL the developed world. Eat nothing but rice ONCE per day, and you may well live to be 80 or more without any other regiment.

Try fasting just once you'll see...

Re:You wouldn't believe how little we need to eat.

[MousePotato]

I'd rather die in my 60's then to live 20 years longer in a nursing home.


Actually, the life extension benefits are much greater than that. It would be more like being a centenarian according to the calendar and still be the equivalent of a fully functional, physically capable and independant 60 year old. Not a bad trade off. Certainly better than the 80 year old who is stuck in the nursing home.