Calorie Restriction May Not Extend Lifespan

sciencehabit writes "Slash your food intake and you can live dramatically longer — at least if you're a mouse or a nematode. But a major study designed to determine whether this regimen, known as caloric restriction, works in primates suggests that it improves monkeys' health but doesn't extend their lives. Researchers not involved with the new paper say the results are still encouraging. Although the monkeys didn't evince an increase in life span, both studies show a major improvement in 'health span,' or the amount of time before age-related diseases set in. 'I certainly wouldn't give up on calorie restriction as a health promoter' based on these findings, says molecular biologist Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge."

Comments

Re:I'll die happy

[Physician]

That is not an option according to the research. You will die at the same time as the skinny guy but will acquire age related diseases sooner so the skinny guy will enjoy a larger percentage of his life outside the nursing home, hospital and doctor's office.

Re:I'll die happy

[iONiUM]

You're quite right. lo carb hi fat diet is also what I use, and I have also had success in lowering my weight, and keeping off mild hypertension. It's extremely sad that people think fat is the what is making them unhealthy.

Re:I'll die happy

[PPalmgren]

Most of the other fun things in life do not favor the restricted calorie intake, so its kind of a moot point unless you enjoy a sedentary lifestyle. As someone whose experienced how the body feels on the level of restricted calories required to trigger the effect that's been studied, its a life of lethargy and lack of energy. I used to eat twice a day, under 1000 calories, and my bodily functions followed (don't have a bowel movement but once every couple days, don't get hungry, etc). The side effects were I could barely work out hard for 20 minutes and couldn't enjoy outdoor activities because I simply didn't have the energy, wanting to sleep upwards of 12 hours a day when feasible. Now that I eat 5 times a day, my body is fully rested on 7 hours and I can enjoy a full day of activity.

Granted, I loved the low calorie method when I was getting all my giggles from gaming and relaxing, but now that I've had the drive to do more it just doesn't work for me. I expect this is the same for parents as well, the key factor being time. To have the energy needed to be active and function on lesser amounts of sleep, a higher metabolism lifestyle is almost a requirement.

Re:I'll die happy

[crmarvin42]

Cooked bacon is about 38-40% fat and 38% protein, and Wendy's Baconator still provides almost half of its calories from carbohydrates.
Most of the fat in cheap ground beef it lost during the cooking process so that even 70% lean beef is only 15-18% fat after cooking
A 1 ounce serving (28g) of Velveeta contains less than 0.01 g of trans fat (the lower threshold for listing)
Most americans are not diabetic

As someone who is professionally employed as a nutritionist and has a Ph.D. in the science, I have to say that this:

There's pretty much something there to sabotage everyone's digestive system and metabolic balance.

is completely meaningless.

There is a lot of FUD being spread around about various types of food, and a lot of misinformation about nutrition in general. Eating at a fast-food joint every day is probably going to be unhealthy depending on what you order, assuming you have a daily caloric expenditure that is close to the 2,000/d that the government bases its recommendations on. However, it is more important that your diet match your activity level, than that you avoid specific foods or food groups. As an illustrative example, Michael Phelps consumes 12,000 calories/d when training. He is obviously a statistical outlier, but that is partially my point. The maintenance energy requirement for every person is different, and very much dependent upon that persons activity level. Their is nothing inherently bad about any of the ingredients in a triple bacon cheeseburger, nor with the final product. It is when such calorie dense meals are consumed in excess of your calorie expenditure that they start to cause problems.