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Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys

nature.com

31–40 of 88 posts

Re: Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys

#31

A lot of people are jumping to extremes. I don't take this to mean I should starve myself. Instead this does encourage me to stop eating until I'm full, just until I'm no longer hungry.

Well CR doesn't really refer to moderation. It refers to restrictions to the point that it is unpleasant to most people.

Re: Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys

#32
post #29
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ageing has been such an insurmountable problem, any methods that indicate that there are ways to somewhat control it are promising and can lead to other discoveries. Perhaps CR only invokes the release of hormones that have a protective effect on cells. Replicate the hormone and perhaps actual caloric restriction may not be necessary.

OK crusso. I like the way you think. From now on you are now in charge of all budgets, articles, blogs, tweets and laboratories relating to CR research. May I suggest that your first fiat be that CR will henceforth only be referred to by acronym.

My initials are CR and all. Makes sense. ;)

Re: Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys

#33
Caloric restriction is absolutely fascinating in all forms. I think intermittent fasting might be the best-known variant of this, but there are others. All of them cause dramatic changes in the way bodies function, from changing the hormones secreted to changing the form of fuel it uses to run itself (e.g. ketones in low-carb diets instead of glucose).

Caloric restriction has a whole bunch of knock-on effects, any one of which could have a huge impact on health and aging. For example, restricting calories means that you're restricting protein. Most people think of protein as a good thing, but that's what stimulates the hormone IGF-1 to be secreted, which is necessary for growth of all kinds--muscle growth (which is why bodybuilders eat as much protein as possible), but also including cancer.

I've seen research that suggests that cells don't go into "repair mode" in the presence of IGF-1. This is just one example of a possible mechanism that caloric restriction could have a hugely beneficial effect on aging and illness in general.

I have a half-written blog post about this I should push out. I'd love to get some more conversation going around this.

Re: Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys

#34

People are mentioning caloric restriction not being worth it for humans because of quality of life vs length of life. However one thought that I find interesting, is that for our generation, living just two or three extra years could potentially make a huge difference. If you subscribe to the idea of a coming technological singularity, or even to the idea that we're a few decades away from SENS escape velocity, you'd…

Or you'd hate to have been hungry for most of your adult life in order to live two years longer, and still miss the rapture.

Re: Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys

#35
>Received 12 October 2013 Accepted 05 March 2014 Published 01 April 2014

Am I the only one who finds this crazy? It takes 6 months from submission date till publication!

The peer review process should move faster and become modernized. I undrestand, you want to be published on prestigious journals, but Nature and others can modernize to publish more. You can argue, we lost 6 months or half a year of progress because of the pace of antiquated publication process.

Re: Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys

#36
post #7

Am I the only one who finds this caloric restriction stuff depressing? If starving for 50 years will increase my life I don't even want to know about it. Stupid science. Next they're going to tell us that a combination of caloric restriction & celibacy will do even more.

Intermittent fasting is the smart way to restrict calories whilst still enjoying food.

Re: Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys

#37

It should be noted that a parallel study[1] at the National Institute for Aging (NIA) found that this was not the case. The authors of this study (UW) claim (as far as I understand) that the NIA study was flawed because both Control and Calorie Restricted (CR) monkeys were fed diets that were both restrictive, and not sufficiently different. There also seem to be some debate about the composition of the diets. The co…

The publicity materials for this recent set of results do a good job of explaining why the researchers think that the NIA study is flawed. In essence the NIA control monkeys are probably on CR.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/monkey-caloric-restriction-...

“In Wisconsin, we started with adults. We knew how much food they wanted to eat, and we based our experimental diet on a 30 percent reduction in calories from that point.” In contrast, the NIA monkeys were fed according to a standardized food intake chart designed by the National Academy of Science.

Through their own experience in monkey research, and by reference to an online database recording the weight of thousands of research monkeys, the Wisconsin researchers concluded that the NIA controls were actually on caloric restriction as well, says Colman. “At all the time points that have been published by NIA, their control monkeys weigh less than ours, and in most cases, significantly so.”

Weindruch also points to some results from the NIA that seem to contradict the “no significant result” analysis. Twenty monkeys entered the NIA study as mature adults, 10 in the test group and 10 in the control group, and five of these (four test monkeys and one control monkey) lived at least 40 years. “Heretofore, there was never a monkey that we are aware of that was reported to live beyond 40 years,” Weindruch says. “Hence, the conclusion that caloric restriction is ineffective in their study does not make sense to me and my colleagues.”

Re: Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys

#38

> Received 12 October 2013 Accepted 05 March 2014 Published 01 April 2014 Am I the only one who finds this crazy? It takes 6 months from submission date till publication! The peer review process should move faster and become modernized. I undrestand, you want to be published on prestigious journals, but Nature and others can modernize to publish more. You can argue, we lost 6 months or half a year of progress because…

Done correctly, reviewing papers is a tedious, time consuming & utterly thankless job that takes time away from your own research. Papers also often go through 2 or three rounds of reviewing/revision. Each one of these cycles can take 1-2 months so it's not surprising it's a slow process.

Re: Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys

#39
post #7

Am I the only one who finds this caloric restriction stuff depressing? If starving for 50 years will increase my life I don't even want to know about it. Stupid science. Next they're going to tell us that a combination of caloric restriction & celibacy will do even more.

I would imagine caloric excess and celibacy tend to go hand in hand... so take your pick

Re: Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys

#40

> Received 12 October 2013 Accepted 05 March 2014 Published 01 April 2014 Am I the only one who finds this crazy? It takes 6 months from submission date till publication! The peer review process should move faster and become modernized. I undrestand, you want to be published on prestigious journals, but Nature and others can modernize to publish more. You can argue, we lost 6 months or half a year of progress because…

The counterargument should be obvious -- peer reviewers are often unpaid experts who review pending articles in whatever spare time they happen to have, between delivering lectures, research, and applying for grants. To speed up the process woulds be to increase its cost, possibly very much, or to degrade the peer review process.

The defects of another alternative should also be obvious -- paid peer reviewers. If this change took place, people would line up for positions they aren't qualified for on the simple ground that they can get paid to appear to be what they aren't. Also, for many cutting-edge fields, there simply aren't more than a handful of qualified reviewers at any price.

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