Live data from Hacker News

The Billionaire Who Is Planning His 125th Birthday

nytimes.com

31–40 of 60 posts

Re: The Billionaire Who Is Planning His 125th Birthday

#31

He doesn’t count calories or believe in extreme caloric restriction as a way to extend life. Not only has caloric restriction been shown to work in mammals (including primates), but it has known mechanisms of action. That's some hefty evidence to ignore. But he does believe that excess weight is a sure way to abbreviate it, and reprimands friends, acquaintances and even strangers who are heavy. The latest studies ( h…

>> He doesn’t count calories or believe in extreme caloric restriction as a way to extend life.

Not only has caloric restriction been shown to work in mammals (including primates), but it has known mechanisms of action. That's some hefty evidence to ignore.

Well, at 87, it's a bit late to start calorie restriction, anyways.

Re: The Billionaire Who Is Planning His 125th Birthday

#33
post #32

Living to 125 would be exceptional, but not all that incredible when you consider that the longest living woman on record lived to 122.5.

And that she quit smoking at 120! A beautiful case study for those who see causation in correlation.

Re: The Billionaire Who Is Planning His 125th Birthday

#34
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting, however. Let's think about it for a minute. - Caloric restriction has been shown to work. Caloric restriction would most likely result in individuals being at least slightly underweight. - Underweight have higher mortality in the old age. Mildly overweight need not worry. So how does that work together?

Practically nobody does CR. The underweight people in the study likely had diseases or nutrient absorption problems.

Practically nobody does CR

Fair enough. I personally wouldn't even try CR - I don't have enough willpower to be slightly hungry for the rest of my life. I'm trying to incorporate some Intermittent Fasting in my life though, since it has some similar benefits.

Re: The Billionaire Who Is Planning His 125th Birthday

#35
post #3

“I went back in my mind: what am I not eating enough of?” he told me. Definitely not fruits and vegetables: he crams as many as 20 of them, including pulverized banana peels and the ground-up rinds of oranges, into the smoothies he drinks two to three times a day Wait, banana peels?

Well, it's not like they're toxic... Have you seen the movie K-Pax?

I would expect banana peels to be quite toxic on average. Lots of pesticides, and unless you live in a place where bananas grow, who knows what they do to the bananas to prepare them for shipping.

Re: The Billionaire Who Is Planning His 125th Birthday

#36
post #3

“I went back in my mind: what am I not eating enough of?” he told me. Definitely not fruits and vegetables: he crams as many as 20 of them, including pulverized banana peels and the ground-up rinds of oranges, into the smoothies he drinks two to three times a day Wait, banana peels?

Well, it's not like they're toxic... Have you seen the movie K-Pax?

Though they apparently are radioactive! :)

Re: The Billionaire Who Is Planning His 125th Birthday

#37
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't they both be right? We're omnivores. I would be surprised if there weren't multiple diets that led to health.

The two are wildly opposing, blaming each other for all the modern life diseases. It's not impossible to be both right, given a sufficiently diverse human genotype pool, but rather hard to imagine really.

Then look to the things are a similar in both diets. Both avoid sugar and processed foods. Both push to one extreme either high fat/low card or high carb/low fat levels. Not to mention things like lowering your stress levels.

Re: The Billionaire Who Is Planning His 125th Birthday

#38
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not like they're toxic... Have you seen the movie K-Pax?

Though they apparently are radioactive! :)

I like the "Banana Equivalent Dose" measurement:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

Re: The Billionaire Who Is Planning His 125th Birthday

#39
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly it is not so simple for an increasingly large number of people suffering from diabetes, obesity, arterial and heart diseases. They are looking for solutions to get healthy so they can enjoy life in the ways you are presenting. So far the 2 main camps claiming to have the solution to everything are pushing 2 completely opposed strategies, none of them seemingly more proven than the other...

Sufficient exercise can reverse or minimize many of those diseases you mention.

Except that carefully controlled studies have failed to support your claim that sufficient (whatever that is) exercise can reverse or minimize most of those diseases.

Re: The Billionaire Who Is Planning His 125th Birthday

#40
post #6

It is interesting that him, and other rich men like Kurzweil are choosing plant-base diets instead of the Taubes, paleo crowd-pushed meat and fat diets. They can't be both right.

My bet is that neither is right... Eat when you're hungry. Stop when you're full. Laugh often. Play (physically) more than occasionally. Drink and be merry. Stop worrying. You'll live forever. And even if you only live a short while, it's better than living a boring life for a slightly longer while.

As the very overweight will attest, "hungry" and "full" are very subjective terms. Eating when they are hungry is what got them into their present state. Laughing won't do much about it, nor will acquiring a drinking problem. Stopping worrying about it leads to the troll-fest of pro-fat discussion boards.
Post reply on HN