45 replies to this topic

[s123]

I found the article.

http://sageke.scienc...ll/2005/16/nf31

They put 6 weeks old female mice on a normal diet or a diet that only contained 23% of the normal amount of methionine. Many of the animals died. Then they increased the dose to 28% (the animals were now 4 months old). At 6 months of age they again raised the amounth of methionine to 33%. The oldest animals in the control group lived 1144 days but the methionine restricted animals lived 100 days longer.

[caston]

Good boy Sven

It seems that taking pure cysteine isn't a good idea after all.

How about Glutathione?

Edited by caston, 14 March 2008 - 03:57 PM.

[s123]

Good boy Sven

It seems that taking pure cysteine isn't a good idea after all.

How about Glutathione?

I don't know for sure, probably glutathione won't be absorbed easily by your body, instead it will be broken down to cysteine, glutamic acid and glycine. But the problem of excitotoxins seems to be when these amino acids are absorbed too fast (like carbohydrates where lower glycemic load are healthier). When a tripeptide like glutathione needs to be broken down before absorption it could prevent a sudden heavy increase in amino acids in your brain. So, maybe glutathione is healthier but I’m not sure.

[niner]

"Using new techniques developed by Professor Simpson and Professor David Raubenheimer (Auckland) the team showed in the fruit fly that calorie restriction is not responsible for extending lifespan: rather the balance of protein to carbohydrate in the diet was critical"

http://www.scienceal...02-16917-2.html
http://www.usyd.edu....ewsstoryid=2160

This whole thread is really interesting.

from sciencealert:

"When offered a choice, flies behaved like nutrient-seeking missiles, unerringly mixing a relatively high protein diet that maximised their lifetime egg production. In other words, flies preferred to achieve maximum evolutionary fitness rather than live as long as possible."

Does this have anything to do with humans acting like meat-seeking missiles? It would be nice if there were a way to methionine restrict without having to eat a weird and awful tasting diet. I don't know if we could selectively block its transport as caston suggested; maybe if it used a very specific transporter. It might be possible to design a molecular method of binding methionine in the gut, attaching it to something that would not get absorbed, like an indigestible carbohydrate or some such. You'd need to couple that with a method to easily monitor your methionine status so you didn't go overboard on it.

[Brainbox]

I found the article.

http://sageke.scienc...ll/2005/16/nf31

They put 6 weeks old female mice on a normal diet or a diet that only contained 23% of the normal amount of methionine. Many of the animals died. Then they increased the dose to 28% (the animals were now 4 months old). At 6 months of age they again raised the amounth of methionine to 33%. The oldest animals in the control group lived 1144 days but the methionine restricted animals lived 100 days longer.

I don't understand this entirely and unfortunately I don't have the time to read the entire research article. But what I seem to understand from the above quote is that this test seems to attenuate some form of a "survival of the fittest" mechanism linked to a genetic predisposition for low methionine diet tolerance, in combination with extension of lifespan only of the "fittest", i.e. low methionine tolerating animals?

Many of the animals died .... oldest animals in the control group lived 1144 days but the methionine restricted animals lived 100 days longer.

Is there any information available regarding mean lifespan (and deviation) in both groups?

There seems to be a risk involved in applying a low methionine diet.

Am I missing / misinterpreting something?

Edit: Never mind the last remark about risk, I initially didn't look at the previous posts carefully enough to find that the context of this was established already.......

Edited by brainbox, 15 March 2008 - 02:34 PM.

[caston]

I don't understand this entirely and unfortunately I don't have the time to read the entire research article. But what I seem to understand from the above quote is that this test seems to attenuate some form of a "survival of the fittest" mechanism linked to a genetic predisposition for low methionine diet tolerance, in combination with extension of lifespan only of the "fittest", i.e. low methionine tolerating animals?

That's right met might not be bad. Met could be very nutritious.

I'm sure there are genes to aid survival in all kinds of harsh conditions e.g. low access to food, extremes in temperature, high salinity, high oxygen/radiation or increased wait-time until reproductive opportunity. If we can find out which of these genes will result in better protein folding QC and autophagy thanks to increased standard of workmanship amongst Chaperones and Proteasome we can turn then on without resorting to measures such as restriction or competitive inhibition of useful inputs into the protein folding process.

Bring on personal genome testing to help individuals find out exactly what set of longevity genes they do or don't have.

Edited by caston, 16 March 2008 - 04:09 AM.

[niner]

Does protein restriction, either in general or of specific amino acids, result in enhanced autophagy?

[caston]

niner: That's one of the theories about how CR works. To answer the question you would really have to ask a specific network of genes to see how they respond.

There are also chaperones and HSPs that help mediate evolution. These accumulate many mutations in folding that won't become noticable in the organism until several generations down the track. It would be an interesting if we could find a way to switch off or divert resources away from evolutionary creativity to maintain current processes.

[DocSchauss]

One of the interesting possibilities about why caloric intake restriction relates to longevity may have nothing to do with the calories, or for protein to carbohydrate restriction but because of the inflammatory responses some people get from certain foods. It is a well known reaction, that foods can cause inflammatory responses such as the release of pro-inflammatory prostaglandins, leukotrienes and cytokeines. It is also known that inflammation can cause damage to cells, DNA, the mitochondria, and mitochondrial DNA. This also is a known cause of aging.
In the book The Biology of Human Longevity by Caleb E. Finch (not a very exciting book but great research), he devotes a lot of time to the effect of inflammation of aging. I work in the field of laboratory test interpretation and work with a test called LEAP MRT which tests for the inflammatory reactivity of foods and food additives on blood. Things that can affect the severity of reactivity include genetics, nutrient levels and balance along with toxic exposure.

[AgeVivo]

It would be nice to make cows and pigs that lack methionine.
If someone here knows how to introduce that...
I am sure many people would buy such meat.

[AgeVivo]

Hi,

http://www.methionine-restriction.org : let's build it together!

Most need for now:
- Litterature and summaries
- web skills

[lunarsolarpower]

If you eat too little of it then your body won't be able to make the proteins that contain methionine (or at least not enough of them).

Which is all of them at least until introns are removed. Met is coded for by sequence AUG which is always the start codon. No methionine, no translation.

[Mind]

Just resurrecting this old thread for the purpose of showing how far ahead of the curve LongeCity members are.

 

Protein restriction benefits metabolic health (in animal models) https://www.scienced...047637418300794

 

Reading this again, brings to mind two things:

 

1. How completely awful the SAD (modern/western) diet is. Too much sugar. Too many carbs. Probably too much charred protein. Not enough raw food (primarily vegetables).

 

2. How good the ketogenic diet is! It looks increasingly likely that the U.S.-led war against dietary fat (from the 1950s to early 2000s) has consigned hundreds of millions and perhaps billions of people around the world to greater levels of age-related disease and suffering, particularly heart disease (considering this recent but not surprising study: https://www.tandfonl...3.2018.1519391)

[Ken Mark]

Leucine restriction has similar effects to CR on longevity, in fruit flies if I remember correctly.

Leucine upregulates mTOR.

So if one just cuts down on Methionine and Leucine, one may get benefits of CR without CR.

[mkp6019]

s123, do you have any thought on using creatine while on a lower methionine diet?

 

I deal with with chronic migraine which is often triggered with the amount of  protein (tyrosine) in SAD diet. Creatine seems to give me energy so I take about 5 grams of micronized per day.

[Mind]

Now that this thread is resurrected, I will chime in and say that a couple more epidemiological studies have come out in the last couple of years that support the idea the lesser protein intake as you grow older is good for life extension.