7 replies to this topic

[Shannon Vyff]

yeah, I left a comment (can't help myself ) The article is quite positive, and it is wonderful to see CR gaining acceptance in this piece they even make it seem easy--or at least they point out that you can get major benefits most likely by just cutting out 8% of your ad lib calories.


http://www.livescien...tml#commentForm

[Matt]

Thanks for sharing the article. I think the longevity benefit from CR they mention is conservative, but still a nice little piece on CR. I also made a little comment too.

[Mind]

I think the longevity benefit from CR they mention is conservative

It is all guess-work at this point. There has been no controlled human study showing an increase in lifespan through CR. The animal evidence is conclusive and biomarkers of CRONies look good, so it is a good bet that CR will extend human lifespan, just not proven yet.

[VictorBjoerk]

What do they mean by extending life 4.5 years? It sounds so odd to me, do they mean that the average life expectancy would be 85 instead of 80 in a CR human control group starting at age 25 with 15 % restriction?

It should also do much more than the extra 4,5 years it would have to be at least 10 extra years because of eliminating common causes of death WITHOUT manipulating maximum lifespan...

[Matt]

There was a study on middle aged men done where they looked at their risk factors and showed how likely they are to still be alive on their 85th birthday depending on their risk factors.

The study showed

"The men who had none of nine disease risk factors at mid-life had a nearly 70 percent chance of living to age 85 and a 55 percent chance of reaching the exceptional milestone. By contrast, those with six or more risk factors at mid-life had a 22 percent chance of living to age 85 and a less than 10 percent chance of exceptional survival."
Source; http://www.abqtrib.c...le-study-shows/

The factors in this were:

- a body-mass index of 25 or more
- having high blood glucose levels
- high triglyceride levels
- high blood pressure
- having low grip strength (unable to squeeze at least 86 pounds of pressure with a handheld device)
- smoking
- consuming three or more alcoholic drinks daily
- not graduating from high school
- being unmarried.


The men in this study were not on a CR diet, if I remember correctly their BMI was somewhere around 24. Look at those factors and tell me that the majority or all of them doesn't reflect a person who is on CR. Hand grip strength is questionable, but taking the evidence with attenuation of muscle loss and function in CR primates, we can assume long term CR will result in good grip strength. The unmarried thing.... I think just having good friends and social life are just as important. But otherwise a person eatin CRON could tick all those boxes.

WITHOUT CR this study showed a 70% chance of reaching 85 years of age. [my father meets all the criteria and hes 53 yay!)

They don't seem to make themselves clear on these reports, if they're saying there will only be a 4.5 year gain in longevity (from 80 to 84.5 years) then to me this is a joke... to me at least

Edited by Matt, 08 July 2008 - 11:21 PM.

[Matt]

Heres a good study, an old one, but might be worth a read. BMI of subjects were between 23 - 25..... They were clearly not CR'd.


Ten Years of Life; Is it a matter of choice?
http://archinte.ama-...int/161/13/1645

Background: Relative risk estimates suggest that effective
implementation of behaviors commonly advocated
in preventive medicine should increase life expectancy,
although there is little direct evidence.
Objective: To test the hypothesis that choices regarding
diet, exercise, and smoking influence life expectancy.
Methods: A total of 34192 California Seventh-Day Adventists
(75% of those eligible) were enrolled in a cohort
and followed up from 1976 to 1988. A mailed questionnaire
provided dietary and other exposure information
at study baseline. Mortality for all subjects was ascertained
by matching to state death tapes and the National
Death Index.

Results: California Adventists have higher life expectancies
at the age of 30 years than other white Californians
by 7.28 years (95% confidence interval, 6.59-7.97
years) in men and by 4.42 years (95% confidence interval,
3.96-4.88 years) in women, giving them perhaps the
highest life expectancy of any formally described population.
Commonly observed combinations of diet, exercise,
body mass index, past smoking habits, and hormone
replacement therapy (in women) can account for
differences of up to 10 years of life expectancy among
Adventists. A comparison of life expectancy when these
factors take high-risk compared with low-risk values
shows independent effects that vary between 1.06 and
2.74 years for different variables. The effect of each variable
is assessed with all others at either medium- or
high-risk levels.

Conclusions: Choices regarding diet, exercise, cigarette
smoking, body weight, and hormone replacement
therapy, in combination, appear to change life expectancy
by many years. The longevity experience of Adventists
probably demonstrates the beneficial effects of
more optimal behaviors.

Survival curve for adventist men and women against the Californian population


"When vegetarians are forced to take medium-
risk values for all other covariates in the statistical
model, the corresponding expected ages at death are 85.3
and 88.6 years, respectively (Figures 3 and 4)"

Edited by Matt, 08 July 2008 - 11:56 PM.

[luminous]

Shannon, thanks for posting this. I just ordered the book, "The Longevity Diet: Discover Calorie Restriction--the Only Proven Way to Slow the Aging Process and Maintain Peak Vitality". You mentioned in your post on the LiveScience website that people should read up on CR before trying to do it. Can you recommend any books or websites?

[Live Forever]

Looks like it was cross-published to the front page of Yahoo today as a news headline:
http://news.yahoo.co...gtrickthatworks