<story><title>Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys</title><url>http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140401/ncomms4557/full/ncomms4557.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>naterator</author><text>It should be noted that a parallel study[1] at the National Institute for Aging (NIA) found that this was not the case. The authors of this study (UW) claim (as far as I understand) that the NIA study was flawed because both Control and Calorie Restricted (CR) monkeys were fed diets that were both restrictive, and not sufficiently different. There also seem to be some debate about the composition of the diets. The controls in the UW study were allowed to eat as they pleased (i.e. become fatties if they wanted). They claim that if both &amp;quot;modest&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;moderate&amp;quot; CR are equivalent, it would be a very important conclusion. The practical consequence, if true, would be that we wouldn&amp;#x27;t have to starve ourselves too much.&lt;p&gt;Mouse models had suggested years ago that calorie restriction could lead to ~%50 increase in lifetime. However, the problem with mouse studies is that they are pretty different, and also the mice they use are really inbred and perhaps non-ideal examples. The conclusion from the primate studies is really stacking up to be a common sense &amp;quot;eat in moderation, healthy, and you&amp;#x27;ll live at least a little longer, maybe a lot&amp;quot;. Not really groundbreaking stuff, to be honest. And still not conclusive when you consider the resources that went into these studies. This also teaches us nothing about mechanisms, which would be &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; useful. Just my cursory assessment so far.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/science/low-calorie-diet-doesnt-prolong-life-study-of-monkeys-finds.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;30&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;low-calorie-diet-d...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Caloric restriction reduces age-related and all-cause mortality in rhesus monkeys</title><url>http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140401/ncomms4557/full/ncomms4557.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jasonkolb</author><text>Caloric restriction is absolutely fascinating in all forms. I think intermittent fasting might be the best-known variant of this, but there are others. All of them cause dramatic changes in the way bodies function, from changing the hormones secreted to changing the form of fuel it uses to run itself (e.g. ketones in low-carb diets instead of glucose).&lt;p&gt;Caloric restriction has a whole bunch of knock-on effects, any one of which could have a huge impact on health and aging. For example, restricting calories means that you&amp;#x27;re restricting protein. Most people think of protein as a good thing, but that&amp;#x27;s what stimulates the hormone IGF-1 to be secreted, which is necessary for growth of all kinds--muscle growth (which is why bodybuilders eat as much protein as possible), but also including cancer.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve seen research that suggests that cells don&amp;#x27;t go into &amp;quot;repair mode&amp;quot; in the presence of IGF-1. This is just one example of a possible mechanism that caloric restriction could have a hugely beneficial effect on aging and illness in general.&lt;p&gt;I have a half-written blog post about this I should push out. I&amp;#x27;d love to get some more conversation going around this.</text></comment>