25 replies to this topic

[Matt]

Attenuation of sarcopenia by dietary restriction in rhesus monkeys.
Colman RJ, Beasley TM, Allison DB, Weindruch R.

Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1220 Capitol Ct., Madison, WI 53715. rcolman@primate.wisc.edu.

Sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass with normal aging, devastates quality of life-and related healthcare expenditures are enormous. The prevention or attenuation of sarcopenia would be an important medical advance. Dietary restriction (DR) is the only dietary intervention that consistently extends median and maximum life span, as well as health span in rodents. Evidence suggests that DR will have a similar effect in primates. Furthermore, DR opposes sarcopenia in rodents. We tested the hypothesis that DR will reduce age-related sarcopenia in a nonhuman primate. Thirty adult male rhesus monkeys, half fed a normal calorie intake and half reduced by 30% in caloric intake, were examined over 17 years for changes in dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry-estimated skeletal muscle mass. Body weight-adjusted skeletal muscle mass declined somewhat in both groups but was far more rapid in the control group. We have shown that moderate, adult-onset DR can attenuate sarcopenia in a nonhuman primate model.

PMID: 18559628 [PubMed - in process]


If anyone has the paper I'd appreciate a look

[VictorBjoerk]

But they only delay sarcopenia? Or can they escape it like with diabetes and remain strong until the end?

[Matt]

But they only delay sarcopenia? Or can they escape it like with diabetes and remain strong until the end?

Well according to that abstract it significantly slows the decline. We see the same with various hormones, and bone with CR too. Start off at a lower level, but the decline is much slower.

There was an interesting study a little while back on rodents. An article states;

"Scientists from the University of Calgary found that rats fed a nutritious, calorie-restricted diet maintained their muscle mass much better than rats that ate a normal amount of food. "It's the equivalent of an 80-year-old rat with the muscles of a 20-year-old rat," said Russ Hepple, a physiologist at the University of Calgary."
http://www.naturalnews.com/019602.html

[zoolander]

Shonghow, generally there is a correlation between muscle mass and diabetes/blood sugar levels. The greater the muscle mass the greater the ability to control blood sugar levels. Muscle is the largest store of glucose in the body.

[kismet]

I do not think the "amount muscle mass" is the mechanism of action in (early life) Cr, though. As most CR practitioner have less muscle mass than the average, but insulin senstivity improves nonetheless, no?
Weight training can also help to stop sarcopenia, probably up to a certain point when CR becomes superior..

Shonghow, generally there is a correlation between muscle mass and diabetes/blood sugar levels. The greater the muscle mass the greater the ability to control blood sugar levels. Muscle is the largest store of glucose in the body.

Edited by kismet, 21 June 2008 - 04:47 PM.

[Matt]

Weight training can also help to stop sarcopenia, probably up to a certain point when CR becomes superior..

Well if you expect that CRers will live longer than weight lifters, then yes, calorie restriction at a certain point will become superior as the weight lifters would have long ago been burned or buried.

Edited by Matt, 21 June 2008 - 05:02 PM.

[VictorBjoerk]

Jack Lalanne hasn't escaped sarcopenia...........

[Matt]

I've been reading the paper. From 9 years both groups have a decline in muscle mass, with the CR group being only half as much loss and the ad lib group showing very rapid decline. From year 12 - 18 there is a continued loss of muscle while the rhesus monkey group looks like it has almost totally prevented it, or significantly delays its onset by many years. I have the paper here if anyone wants to take a look.

"We have shown that age-related loss of muscle mass, or
sarcopenia, is delayed and possibly prevented in our rhesus
monkey model of adult-onset, moderate DR. To our
knowledge this is the first report of DR’s ability to maintain
muscle mass in aging animals from a primate species. If
translatable to humans, this result could have major positive
effects on functionality and quality of life for elderly people,
as well as on lowering healthcare expenditures."

Edited by Matt, 22 June 2008 - 02:45 PM.

[Matt]

[VictorBjoerk]

What could the specific reason to this be? Is it glycation of the muscles making them weaker or what exact is it that dietary restriction prevents?

[kismet]

Jack Lalanne hasn't escaped sarcopenia...........

Exactly, after a certain point you can't prevent it even w/ exercise. Jack officialy is over the hill.

Btw Matt you have the full paper? Could you give me a copy?

[Mind]

Just eye-balling it at the 17th year it looks like an ESM difference 9 (Control) vs. 8.25 (Restricted). So Restricted are 8.3% better. Nice, but not so stupendous as to convince me it is worth a lifetime of starvation (although all the benefits of CR put together is a little more convincing). I would rather just adopt CR later in life, and still get most of the benefits. That way I wouldn't have to torture myself when I am young.

[Matt]

I wouldn't describe CR as being torture...

Anyway what I would expect is that the CR and Ad lib will show a bigger difference as time goes on... (we see this for many biomarkers in rodent studies, the difference at first is small, but it grows) this is a just a hint that we are seeing the same kind of thing what we see in rodents. Looking at it, the CR group had a higher ESM at 17 years than the ad lib group at 10 years! If you want to translate this into human years this then this would be a *delay* in muscle loss that would equal where the ad lib group is at right now, at about 21 years human years and counting. I think that makes sense?

Anyway you want the paper just PM me your email Add.

Edited by Matt, 22 June 2008 - 07:42 PM.

[Mind]

I wouldn't describe CR as being torture...

You are right...that was too strong of terminology. Somewhat unpleasant. Difficult to maintain. Persistent hunger. Maybe that would be more fitting.

[VictorBjoerk]

One of the first articles that got my attention regarding calorie restriction was "the famine of youth" in an old edition of scientific american.
It didn't picture CR in such a pleasant way like Paul Mcglothin or April Smith do, The man featured weighed only 110 lbs I think at 6'2 and described how it was to live under such a regimen which sounded a bit like torture,and he claimed to have no benefits of it as well.

But the animal evidence really makes it feel tempting to start it on a moderate degree although I'm still too young for it. But having a BMI of 15-16 sounds horrible and not feasible despite the potential extra years.......

Many years ago I also saw it featured briefly on swedish television..

Edited by Shonghow, 22 June 2008 - 10:15 PM.

[VictorBjoerk]

I've heard that many calorie restrictors can get a surprisingly high weight-to-strength ratio (although they are of course much weaker than the average person), is that true?

[Matt]

I've heard that many calorie restrictors can get a surprisingly high weight-to-strength ratio (although they are of course much weaker than the average person), is that true?

You've never seen me at Karate When practicing our kicks against a padded thing which the person held, they would usually go flying backwards... I did have a powerful kick even though I weighed about 54kg at the time.

Fast forward to about 1 year ago when I had a BMI of 16.4 (around 50kg) I was lifting heavier weights than my friend Liam who had a BMI of 25 and was around 6ft 3" ! He was struggling on 50-60kg I was up to over 70kg bench presses. So it's not AMAZINGLY high weight, but was fine for me and my lifestyle I lead. It's not like I had trouble carrying home the shopping.

It's ridiculous when people think of CRers as weak. Sure I'm not as strong as many bigger people than me, but I'm not (well was not pre cipro) frail!

[Ben]

bmi 16!!! 70kg bench press!!! Wow, you've my undying respect. Maybe not undying, but still, my respect.

Maybe not respect, but wow I'm amazed!

[kenj]

>>> It's ridiculous when people think of CRers as weak. Sure I'm not as strong as many bigger people than me, but I'm not (well was not pre cipro) frail! <<<

Matt, that's great feedback. I have lost a little weight from reducing cals, and I did notice energy loss in the process, however lately I seem to be getting my energy back with a vengeance, so I can continue exercising throughout the week with as much power as before, on smaller meals.
Or it could be the summer. Ha.

[edward]

write up of this study at longevity meme

http://www.fightagin...ives/001507.php

[edward]

I find this all very impressive, I also wonder what it says for those of us doing IF with adequate calories, I would guess an even better preservation of muscle mass. I certainly have made strength gains on IF, more so than previously, even though half your time is spent in a "catabolic" state (fasting) it is definitely an anabolic diet. I am betting a higher level of nutrient partitioning going on in CR and probably IF also.

[luv2increase]

Attenuation of sarcopenia by dietary restriction in rhesus monkeys.
Colman RJ, Beasley TM, Allison DB, Weindruch R.

Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1220 Capitol Ct., Madison, WI 53715. rcolman@primate.wisc.edu.

Sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass with normal aging, devastates quality of life-and related healthcare expenditures are enormous. The prevention or attenuation of sarcopenia would be an important medical advance. Dietary restriction (DR) is the only dietary intervention that consistently extends median and maximum life span, as well as health span in rodents. Evidence suggests that DR will have a similar effect in primates. Furthermore, DR opposes sarcopenia in rodents. We tested the hypothesis that DR will reduce age-related sarcopenia in a nonhuman primate. Thirty adult male rhesus monkeys, half fed a normal calorie intake and half reduced by 30% in caloric intake, were examined over 17 years for changes in dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry-estimated skeletal muscle mass. Body weight-adjusted skeletal muscle mass declined somewhat in both groups but was far more rapid in the control group. We have shown that moderate, adult-onset DR can attenuate sarcopenia in a nonhuman primate model.

PMID: 18559628 [PubMed - in process]

Have you noticed that you are retaining more muscle mass Matt? Has your physique improved whilst engaging in CR?

Thanks!

[hormoneman]

If caloric restriction can delay aging, then there should have been significantly fewer deaths in the dieting group of monkeys than in the normally fed comparison group. But this is not the case. Though a smaller number of dieting monkeys have died, the difference is not statistically significant, the Wisconsin team reports.

No statistical difference. It was a null study that to date has failed to support the calorie restriction hypothesis.

The non-aging-related causes of death included monkeys who died while taking blood samples under anesthesia, from injuries or from infections, such as gastritis and endometriosis. These causes may not be aging-related as defined by the researchers, but they could realistically be adverse effects of prolonged calorie restrictions on the animals’ health, their immune system, ability to handle stress, physical agility, cognition or behavior.


As we know, the most important endpoint in medical interventions is all-cause mortality. Selectively looking at only one cause of death, while ignoring that more patients died from something else, is not evidence to support the efficacy of a treatment. “The treatment worked, but the patient died” is not good medicine that considers the whole patient.


The researchers also used age-related causes of death as meaning the age-associated diseases most prevalent in humans, cancer and heart disease. But, the authors explained, “typically, cardiovascular disease is not detected in caged animals, though on physical exam, a heart murmur may be noted.” So, they used noninvasive techniques to evaluate murmurs, as well as monitor the animals for the presence of tumors.


Another misconception repeated in mainstream media coverage was that the calorie restricted monkeys were eating 30% fewer calories than normal. Again, few people read carefully or went to the study methodology to understand that the monkeys were really eating about 30% less than the control monkeys. In actuality, the control animals were overfed 20% more than their usual diet, while the CR monkeys’ diets were adjusted to keep them about 30% less than the control monkeys.

http://junkfoodscien...for-longer.html

[Matt]

She needs to check her facts before publishing misleading rubbish on her blog. She had quite a few things wrong, you can see here on my blog:
http://matts-cr.blog...nkey-study.html

[kismet]

Another topic discussed to death. Everything based on the available data was already said in the other thread, as long as there's no new data or some CR expert does not chime in (MR?), we're going in circles. If anything the study is positive, not negative.

Edited by kismet, 19 August 2009 - 12:14 PM.

[Brainbox]

Thanks for posting the information!

I did merge it into this topic that already existed about this subject.

One thing that is good to do before posting is a quick search. Use the search tab in the upper right. When searching, select the "search titles only" option. This will result in a very fast search of the Imminst forums. This is especially useful for historical perspective and reference - especially with regard to new biotech and pharma advances. Adding to a previous discussion will resurrect past thoughts on the issue and will help everyone see how things have changed.