112 replies to this topic

[Mewtwo]

In the book THE CR WAY, the authors indicate that supplements, which contain nicotinamide, inhibit SIRT1. As a rule, I avoid supplements.
I get more than enough vitamins and minerals from what I eat.

And 800-1100 can be alot of food, it is a matter of choice. For instance, a cucumber has only about 40 calories. Try eating 25 cucumbers!

[Matt]

Interesting that many people voted for less than 5 year gain lol. Even Seventh day adventist live 8.9 years longer than Californian men ! ! ! And thats WITHOUT CR! Just by leading a healthy lifestyle.

Edited by Matt, 20 June 2008 - 12:21 AM.

[VictorBjoerk]

Interesting that many people voted for less than 5 year gain lol. Even Seventh day adventist live 8.9 years longer than Californian men ! ! ! And thats WITHOUT CR! Just by leading a healthy lifestyle.

Matt:How long do you think seriously practising CR people starting at age 20 can live? Do you really think 120-130 or so??

[Matt]

Interesting that many people voted for less than 5 year gain lol. Even Seventh day adventist live 8.9 years longer than Californian men ! ! ! And thats WITHOUT CR! Just by leading a healthy lifestyle.

Matt:How long do you think seriously practising CR people starting at age 20 can live? Do you really think 120-130 or so??

I believe on average, we would see similar quality of life and lifespans of super centenarians today... if CR is started no later than 30. I believe a few would make it to 130. Reaching 140 - 150 years might be possible if you had another Jean Calment in the CR cohort. So possible, but rare.

CR I think will take us really close to our maximum life span of 110-120 years if done early on in life. I think it's almost assured that the vast majority of CRers will reach their 90's purely based on the risk factors for disease alone. I think researchers believe that if you eliminate the biggest causes of disease (which CR does) then people on average could live anywhere from 85 - 90 years?

I can't help chuckle over the fact that people voted < 5 years for CR. Unless they thought the poll was on maximum lifespan... then sure, the question is up in the air for that... The only way I can remain on CR is to actually believe CR will work, and work quite well. Otherwise I would gain 10 - 20 lbs if it was absolutely proven to be not effective in humans.

Edited by Matt, 20 June 2008 - 01:49 AM.

[AgeVivo]

CR extends rodents lifespan by 40%.
Great results seem to be obtained with monkeys too,
which was not obvious because they already live very long

In fact I would say more than 40% because
- it seems that with ad-libitum, food lab animals naturally 'restrict' compared to what humans often do
- the animals had the same food everyday (which is generally) which probably limited the effect of CR in animals
- animals were not treated if they had diseases. It seems that CR particularly extended 'healthy life', not much once bad injury/disease happens. Humans are treated and I think that the 'not so healthy' life would be more extended under CR that under normal nutrition.

So I would guess +50%: say you can expect to live on average 130y if you start at young adulthood and do things properly (and belong to the long-lived educated class which is obviously the case).

But, obviously the trouble is that CR is just too difficult to do. => hardly any result on the whole population. Methionine restriction shall, in this respect, be thousand times better. I'm studying what to do to put it in practice.

Edited by AgeVivo, 24 June 2008 - 09:50 PM.

[VictorBjoerk]

CR extends rodents lifespan by 40%.
Great results seem to be obtained with monkeys too,
which was not obvious because they already live very long

In fact I would say more than 40% because
- it seems that with ad-libitum, food lab animals naturally 'restrict' compared to what humans often do
- the animals had the same food everyday (which is generally) which probably limited the effect of CR in animals
- animals were not treated if they had diseases. It seems that CR particularly extended 'healthy life', not much once bad injury/disease happens. Humans are treated and I think that the 'not so healthy' life would be more extended under CR that under normal nutrition.

So I would guess +50%: say you can expect to live on average 130y if you start at young adulthood and do things properly (and belong to the long-lived educated class which is obviously the case).

But, obviously the trouble is that CR is just too difficult to do. => hardly any result on the whole population. Methionine restriction shall, in this respect, be thousand times better. I'm studying what to do to put it in practice.

You are very optimistic!

[garthclarkdr]

Just going by the results in organisms already shown to have life extension by CR or CR path mimics/inducers, the average seems to be 20-30% extension. The life extension for a 20 y/o ((80-20)*0.20-0.30)=12-18 years. Optimal extension may be 40% (24 years).

[Matt]

Basing up your conclusions based on a 80year lifespan, this is probably conservative. Basing those numbers on a non-obesity inducing, good quality, ad lib diet. An example of this is seventh day adventists in California where the ad lib males (bmi of 24-25) live to around 86-88 years ON AVERAGE? Depending whether they're vegetarian or not.


Here is how the level of CR translates to lifespan in rodents. Interestingly one of the data points from 'a study' looked quite nice, with just over a 35% restriction relative to ad lib, but about a 50% extension of maximum lifespan.

Edited by Matt, 29 June 2008 - 01:05 PM.

[Mewtwo]

I voted for 50+ because I believe that although a perfect CRON diet can extend life perhaps to a lesser extent than in mice,
but, I believe that medical advances can greatly increase lifespan during the years in question.

So like Mr. Kurzweil says, you have to "live long enough to live forever."

I think that getting the ratios just right can extend life MUCH further than are used to seeing, it is just a matter of very careful analysis.

[Mewtwo]

Also, to answer those who wonder about skinny people in the past living longer: eating less will not extend life, getting more from less will.

Even with software it is VERY difficult to plan a diet which can meet our high standards,
I seriously doubt that anyone has ever accidentally discovered a good CRON diet in their starvation routines.

[Forever21]

I thought the Okinawans settled this for us.

80 (west)
110 (okinawan)

20-30 extra years

[Heliotrope]

I thought the Okinawans settled this for us.

80 (west)
110 (okinawan)

20-30 extra years

wow okinawans's average age is like 110?!? seriously? The West , like in US , average age is in the mid to late 70-year-olds, approaching 80, but you mean to say the Okis 's average is supercentenarian status? LOL, i find this funny, where's your source? the the oldest person in the world is american , i think edna parker, she's like in her mid 110's only.

lol, imagine we all eat like the Okinawans but with superior modern-type healthcare and the medical tech of the West , best of both worlds , we'd live to maybe 150

[Forever21]

dear hyp86,

thanks

110 is not average so its probably apples and oranges.

i just saw that number (110) on okinawan diet on wikipedia
and the video on okinawan diet on youtube mention that
90 in okinawa is a youngster. so i thought it was average.

but upon closer look, it just happens that they have a
high concentration of centenarians but the official average is still 80.
of those centenarians, diet & lifestyle was credited.

please share whatever info you might have. this is very
informational for me as i am just starting to learn all these.

thanks & take care

Edited by Forever21, 05 July 2008 - 09:38 AM.

[Forever21]

An article I found

http://www.medicalne...icles/29873.php

Will low calorie diet dramatically extend your life span? It does not look like it

Article Date: 31 Aug 2005 - 0:00 PDT

Severely restricting calories over decades may add a few years to a human life span, but will not enable humans to live to 125 and beyond, as many have speculated, evolutionary biologists report.

"Our message is that suffering years of misery to remain super-skinny is not going to have a big payoff in terms of a longer life," said UCLA evolutionary biologist John Phelan. "I once heard someone say caloric restriction may not make you live forever, but it sure would seem like it. Try to maintain a healthy body weight, but don't deprive yourself of all pleasure. Moderation appears to be a more sensible solution.

"With mice, if you restrict their caloric intake by 10 percent, they live longer than if they have unlimited access to food," Phelan said. "If you restrict their intake by 20 percent, they live even longer, and restrict them to 50 percent, they live longer still; but restrict their intake by 60 percent and they starve to death.

"Humans, in contrast, will not have rodent-like results from dramatically restricting calories," he said. "Caloric restriction is not a panacea. While caloric restriction is likely to be almost universal in its beneficial effects on longevity, the benefit to humans is going to be small, even if humans restrict their caloric intake substantially and over long periods of time."

Phelan developed the first mathematical model demonstrating the relationship between caloric intake and longevity, using representative data from controlled experiments with rodents, as well as published studies on humans, diet and longevity. He and Michael Rose, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Irvine, published their findings in a journal article titled, "Why dietary restriction substantially increases longevity in animal models but won't in humans," published in the August issue of the peer-reviewed journal Ageing Research Reviews.

Their mathematical model shows that people who consume the most calories have a shorter life span, and that if people severely restrict their calories over their lifetimes, their life span increases by between 3 percent and 7 percent -- far less than the 20-plus years some have hoped could be achieved by drastic caloric restriction. He considers the 3 percent figure more likely than the 7 percent.

"The trade-off between calories and longevity appears to be close to a linear relationship, but the slope isn't very steep," said Phelan, whose model predicts the relationship between calories consumed and life span.

Phelan's conclusion is that the few extra years of life are not worth the suffering necessary to achieve them.

"Do you want to spend decades severely limiting what you eat to live a few more years? You will be unhappy and then your life will end shortly after mine ends," Phelan jokes.

Scientists have known for six decades that cutting the caloric intake of rodents by 40 percent or 50 percent results in dramatically longer lives for them.

"You can practically double their life span," Phelan said. "The same result has been found in fish, spiders and many other species. If it works for them, some thought, it should work for us; I'm here to tell you it doesn't."

Phelan, co-author of the book, "Mean Genes," conducted his dissertation at Harvard University 10 years ago on caloric restriction and on why it works in extending the lives of rodents.

"When you restrict the caloric intake of rodents, the first thing they do is shut off their reproductive system," said Phelan, citing a finding from his dissertation. A normal rodent reaches maturity at one month of age, and begins reproducing its body weight in offspring every month and a half. If humans shut off reproduction by severely limiting calories, "our reduction in wear and tear on the body is minimal," he said.

The rodents placed on severely restricted diets bit people who tried to hold them, and had an unpleasant demeanor, unlike the more docile animals given more "normal" amounts of food, Phelan said.

"I think about food all the time," he said. "I'm not going to be so extreme that I become the mouse that bites anyone who touches me. My advice about food is be sensible, and don't be a fanatic about it because the payoffs are not worth it."

While the relationship between how much you eat and your life span is not so dramatic, there are very real costs of being overweight -- including greater risk for heart disease and other life threatening illnesses, Phelan said.

The human data factored into the mathematical model include the caloric intake of people in Japan, and their longevity, compared with sumo wrestlers, who consume more than twice the normal male diet, and men in Okinawa, Japan, who consume less than the average Japanese male.

Ageing Research Reviews is a quarterly journal respected in the field of gerontology.

-UCLA- LSSW400

Stuart Wolpert
stuartw@college.ucla.edu
310-206-0511
University of California - Los Angeles
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu

Edited by Forever21, 06 July 2008 - 02:56 PM.

[Heliotrope]

"Do you want to spend decades severely limiting what you eat to live a few more years? You will be unhappy and then your life will end shortly after mine ends "

how'd CR people answer that Q? For a person who happily ate everything (mostly in moderation of course) or Pigged-out for a lifetime of happiness and then dies at say 76 years old, and one of the CR guys lived to 80... assuming no genetics factors etc and everything else being equal, just that the control group lived to 76 and experimental group 80.

what would you think? would you be mad that they got to live almost as long as you did and enjoyed things more or is CR really really good?

[Matt]

Phelan has no hard evidence, only theoretical evidence of why CR wont work.... so it proves nothing. He was actually at the last CR conference and you can get the DVD of his talk at the CRS website (with all others talks).

a) A recent obesity avoidance study on rhesus monkeys restricting by 30% resulted in a equivalent gain of life expectancy to that of 21 years, the monkeys on average lived to 32 years which would have been 96 human years with the control monkeys only reaching 75 human equiv years.

b) Seventh Day adventist men typically live a few years longer than other Californians by 6.1 years for women and 9.5 years for men. This is without CR because their average BMI according to studies on them has shown they're between 24-26 (BMI)

c) Again, no hard evidence on why that CR won't work in humans, but overwhelming evidence CR decreases or eliminates disease risk.

Edited by Matt, 06 July 2008 - 08:18 PM.

[Heliotrope]

hey Matt, I think CR must work at least a little too. I just don't want to give up good food for now, though I actually intermittantly fast sometimes like 20-24 hours straight , once every 1 or 2 weeks , sometimes fasting more often. btw, do you think you look and/or feel very young due to your genetics and playing sports, or more due to practicing CR?

I know you look like child or teenager but are actually 24 and you said your sister looks years younger than her age but doesn't practice CR like you do? your whole family could have been blessed with very good genes, lucky you , and coupled with CR you can probably live to centenarian ages w/o extra hi-tech.

Edited by HYP86, 06 July 2008 - 08:41 PM.

[AgeVivo]

You are very optimistic!

I'm thinking of CR in conjunction to other things (not the CR done in mice). Also there are still good reasons to be optimistic: http
://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?sho...979&st=150
you will in particular see that the human maximum lifespan grows roughly at the same speed as average lifespan in industrialized countries, so we are probably not close to a maximum lifespan limit and that it is easy to extend it

[Matt]

hey Matt, I think CR must work at least a little too. I just don't want to give up good food for now, though I actually intermittantly fast sometimes like 20-24 hours straight , once every 1 or 2 weeks , sometimes fasting more often. btw, do you think you look and/or feel very young due to your genetics and playing sports, or more due to practicing CR?

I know you look like child or teenager but are actually 24 and you said your sister looks years younger than her age but doesn't practice CR like you do? your whole family could have been blessed with very good genes, lucky you , and coupled with CR you can probably live to centenarian ages w/o extra hi-tech.

The reason I appear young is I think due to the fact that I have been involved in sports all my life and stayed very slim practically all of my life, which probably kept insulin and glucose levels low. My father looks about 10-15 years younger than his age but he also was very skinny for at least 20 years while we was eating a plant based diet. I have actually maintained weight that was often going between underweight and normal weight for much of my life now. As a teenager I practically ate lots of cereal (a lot of the times for breakfast and dinner) and skipped the family dinner which was mostly processed foods anyway. I also have hardly ate any meat at all growing up, probably red meat no more than 5 times in my life. Then from age 18 as I said I went from a BMI of about 20 to 18.5 (didn't even know about CR at the time), and then from age of 20 I decreased my calories and dropped even more weight. So I could argue that by definition, I have been "CR'd" for quite a while now.

It is impossible for me to say whether it was all the exercising growing up. I did Judo, Karate, Boxing, 10 years of football every day, Hockey, Ice Hockey, climbing etc etc... or maybe because I often ate a limited range of 'fortified foods' I ate less calories, or whether it is purely down to sun avoidance... or genetics as you say. All my grandparents reached a age of around 85 years depsite life long smoking. But all did die of lung cancer.

However this is just an observation I've made, I find that most naturally skinny people tend to look younger than their age. Even some of them go as far as complaining about looking so young.

You can judge yourself whether I looked younger than my chronological age at different points in my life by seeing my photos here http://www.matthewla...m/agingmatt.htm -- Click on them to enlarge

- Sorry for all the edits!

Edited by Matt, 17 July 2008 - 10:28 PM.

[kismet]

You are very optimistic!

I'm thinking of CR in conjunction to other things (not the CR done in mice). Also there are still good reasons to be optimistic: http
://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?sho...979&st=150
you will in particular see that the human maximum lifespan grows roughly at the same speed as average lifespan in industrialized countries, so we are probably not close to a maximum lifespan limit and that it is easy to extend it

I guess that's still more or less "squaring the curve" as the absolute limit will probably stay around ~120y, just more people will come close.

"Suffering years of misery" I see. I hate that "depression" argument against CR, I really do. I'm not even on CR, but it sounds so damn childish "you will live longer, but I will live happier lalalalala!". Damn it, don't they realize there may be people who are still happy even with a very low BMI. People make it seem as if there were no other pleasures in life than eating and no interventions that help with depression.

[Matt]

People forget that quality of life has a lot to do with how well you feel. If people have very little disease on CR, they're more likely to be happier and can enjoy everything that life has to offer. Rather than being in a chair for a decade of your life, or with a chronic diseases limiting your activities.

[VictorBjoerk]

I sometimes wonder if many people would really consider absence of disease as quality of life,there are so many people who survive heart attacks and still continue being fat and eat enormous quantities of grossly unhealthy food.

[Matt]

I sometimes wonder if many people would really consider absence of disease as quality of life,there are so many people who survive heart attacks and still continue being fat and eat enormous quantities of grossly unhealthy food.

Some just give up, thinking there is nothing that can be done... I've seen it so many times. But from personal experience (if you read what happened to me with Cipro), I realize just how much being healthy means. If I had millions I would give it all away that to go through what I went through again.

[VictorBjoerk]

Michael: how much do you think that CR could extend human life if started at the age of 25 or so and at your restriction level? Do you think it will result in a very high chance of becoming a centenarian?

Edited by Michael, 26 October 2008 - 03:16 PM.

[Matt]

So a nice update from Weindruch on the Rhesus Monkey study.....


so far...
50% of AD LIB died
25% of CR died

See the video here

http://www.cbsnews.c...ch/?id=4752354n

[VictorBjoerk]

So a nice update from Weindruch on the Rhesus Monkey study.....


so far...
50% of AD LIB died
25% of CR died

See the video here

http://www.cbsnews.c...ch/?id=4752354n

Well, what was the cause of death in the calorie restricted monkeys?That would be more interesting to know. If they died of cancer or heart disease it is not very good. Still it doesn't seem so impressive that as many as 25% have died within the average non-Cr lifespan.
I would have thought of a lot dying at similar ages corresponding to 100-115 human years or so.
Since they are in a sterile environment there should be no infections/trauma and therefore we must conclude that the Cr monkeys who have died have succumbed to age-related pathology before the average life expectancy for a rhesus ape.

[Matt]

I talked about it about this here http://www.caloriere...1028#msg-191028 . you should read it.

I would have thought of a lot dying at similar ages corresponding to 100-115 human years or so.

And I think this will be the case for a lot of the monkeys... but the study itself is still a LONG way off from completion. Weindruch expects a few of the CR monkeys to reach 40 years (120 human years). There has already been one monkey on CR reaching 43 years of age.

The CR group, especially only 25-30% CR protocol typically do have a similar curve at the start but then widens over time. At least I hope this happens. Even if the Monkeys reach an average of 35 years this is equiv of 105 human years, this is still good and worth life long CR. It's signifiantly better than 78-85 most people die at. The monkeys were also placed on CR at 10 years of age (30 human years). CR is most effective when started at a really young age or in equivalent of teen years. I feel happy to have started at a much yonger age (18 years old if I count my initial weight loss from an already healthy weight by healthier diet).

Cr monkeys who have died have succumbed to age-related pathology before the average life expectancy for a rhesus ape.

They spent 10 years eating ad lib, well into their adulthood... so diseases like diabetes actually set in for a couple of the monkeys, but was resolved by CR.

The study started in 1989, and then more monkeys were added in 1994. The groups are split into 3 groups, the oldest group was 25 - 32 years of age around year 2006/2007 ( richard weindruch ). So we don't know the ages of death. There could be one or two centenarian monkeys by now lol.

Saying the study looks like a failure already is wrong when we don't have all th data. For all you know by the time CR group reaches 50% mortality there might only be one or two ad lib monkeys left. We just don't know whats going to happen. Just because there are a few early deaths doesn't mean anything yet.

Edit;
I hope this made sense, I'm half asleep right now =/

Edited by Matt, 29 January 2009 - 01:25 PM.

[nowayout]

Interesting that many people voted for less than 5 year gain lol. Even Seventh day adventist live 8.9 years longer than Californian men ! ! ! And thats WITHOUT CR! Just by leading a healthy lifestyle.

Well, that's a pretty low bar you are setting. It doesn't take much to live longer than Californian men.

Edited by andre, 04 February 2009 - 04:01 PM.

[nowayout]

"Suffering years of misery" I see. I hate that "depression" argument against CR, I really do. I'm not even on CR, but it sounds so damn childish "you will live longer, but I will live happier lalalalala!". Damn it, don't they realize there may be people who are still happy even with a very low BMI. People make it seem as if there were no other pleasures in life than eating and no interventions that help with depression.

I don't practice CR either, but I have never understood the assumption either that equates eating less, or even eating healthy, with being unhappy. I do know some people who are all about food, and I sometimes pity them for the problems it causes them. On the other hand, I know from experience that it can be hard for them to understand someone like me who is not all about food. People often try to force food on me, because they think I am just being polite when I refuse. "He says he's not even tempted by the gelato - he must be lying."

[Bodhi]

A buck fitty, no prolem.

Just drink lots of homebrew!!