EATING FEWER CALORIES SAFELY MAY LENGTHEN LIFE: THESE GUYS SAY THEY THINK THEY KNOW WHY
If you eat fewer calories while still getting a well balanced nutritional diet,the chances are good that you will live longer. That seems to be the upshot of several reports that have been published over the years. It has been reported for many years that chronic calorie restriction without nutritional deficiencies increases the length of life. Now a study reports that they may have found a gene that explains why calorie restriction may lengthen life.
Scientists can "knock out" or shut down the function of various genes in a study animal to see which are important. They are able to selectively turn off a gene in an animal and then see what happens. It is somewhat analogous to going into the electrical equipment room of a large building and removing a part from some machine you see. If the air conditioner stops working you know that part had some relation to the air conditioning. They often use a worm called C. elegans because it is so simple and well understood yet by studying it they can probably learn lessons applicable to higher organisms.
A research group says that they have a found a gene that codes for a protein in C. elegans that is related to longevity and that calorie restriction may be causing increased production of the pha-4 protein and so leading to longer life (at least in C. elegans).
Calorie Restriction for Long Life Paradigm Known for 6o Years
To quote from an article Caloric Restriction in Primates"Dietary caloric restriction (CR) is the only intervention conclusively and reproducibly shown to slow aging and maintain health and vitality in mammals. Although this paradigm has been known for over 60 years, its precise biological mechanisms and applicability to humans remain unknown. We began addressing the latter question in 1987 with the first controlled study of CR in primates (rhesus and squirrel monkeys, which are evolutionarily much closer to humans than the rodents most frequently employed in CR studies). To date, our results strongly suggest that the same beneficial "anti aging" and/or "anti disease" effects observed in CR rodents also occur in primates. These include lower plasma insulin levels and greater sensitivity; lower body temperatures; reduced cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, and arterial stiffness; elevated HDL; and slower age-related decline in circulating levels of DHEAS. Collectively, these biomarkers suggest that CR primates will be less likely to incur diabetes, cardiovascular problems, and other age-related diseases and may in fact be aging more slowly than fully fed counterparts. Despite these very encouraging results, it is unlikely that most humans would be willing to maintain a 30% reduced diet for the bulk of their adult life span, even if it meant more healthy years. "
What is it about Eating Fewer Calories That Increases Longevity also the New England Centenarian Study
So scientists have been trying to determine what if anything is happening in caloric restriction that would prolong life.
On a related note examine the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University School of Medicine that tries to figure out factors that help people to live longer.
