5 replies to this topic

[InquilineKea]

Or has it extended the lifespan of any other animal?

It's quite a credible mechanism: it's an indirect way of inducing calorie restriction through appetite loss

[Raptor87]

Being a stimulant to me it sounds like it would accelerate heart-rate and also the rate of other organs which might shorten lifespan. But I might be wrong.

[Cephalon]

I'm not aware of any studies, but I highly doubt that Ritalin will extend the lifespan of any species.

Simply restricting calorie intake is not the full story of caloric restriction, though the term suggests this.

That is why some people call CR CRON which is calorie restriction on optimal nutrition as you will probably know.

A caloric restriction with malnutrition is not extending lifespans.

So your experiments setup must only involve nutrition dense foods from which the mice can eat as much as they want.

If restricting the intake of nutrition dense food (so that the mice are 10-40% restricted in calories) by giving the mice Ritalin (as far as Ritalin supresses appetite in mice) the positive aspects of CR could apply.




But as suggested by Brainfogged, this positive effects will probably be neutralized by an increased rate of cardiovascular incidents.

I'm not sure about other long term effect of Ritalin, because I'm not so much informed about this medication.




If your mice have free choice of food they will most likely be really sick after a short period of time. A diet consisting of marshmallow fluff and root beer, though restricted in calories through restriction in intake, will more likely shorten lifespans.

Edited by Cephalon, 22 July 2011 - 07:50 PM.

[Raptor87]

http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/9316546
http://www.ncbi.nlm....v/pubmed/518447

[VoidPointer]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9316546
http://www.ncbi.nlm....v/pubmed/518447

caffeine also increases resting heartrate for most people, and does not generally reduce appetite or provide significant relief to ADD symptoms.
I do not think that it is likely stimulants increase lifespan, but they offer other benefits that may improve life quality.

interestingly, my resting heart rate was at rather low when I was taking higher doses of dexMPH(I mean the days when I was not under the influence of the meds).

If you are really worried about resting heart rate, exercise and a good diet will make a difference.

[InquilineKea]

Mm, caffeine actually does increase lifespan in C. elegans (source: Kaeberlein). In fact, it has far more health benefits than health costs.

See http://www.quora.com...ne-on-the-brain

Increasing one's heart rate will hurt if one is already vulnerable to heart disease. But calorie restriction (helped by methylphenidate) can practically eliminate the risk of heart disease (cancer is then the main thing to watch for).

Also, it's easy to control the amount of nutrients that rats/mice eat anyways. If they eat less, just put more nutrients into their food

Edited by InquilineKea, 27 July 2011 - 01:00 AM.