Premature Aging and Calorie Restriction
An interesting and speculative post from Ouroboros: "small body size due to genetic dwarfism and calorie restriction (CR) are both known to extend lifespan in many organisms ... One would therefore expect that animals with DNA repair-related progeroid syndromes would be dissimilar in every regard from dwarf and CR animals - but [results] from a multi-lab collaboration suggest that certain kinds of (life-shortening) DNA repair deficiencies trigger the same alterations in metabolism that are activated during (life-prolonging) CR. ... Short-lived repair mutants seem to divert resources away from growth and into maintenance and repair - because they need more repair. Long-lived dwarf mutants and CR animals divert resources away from growth and into maintenance and repair - because they don't necessarily have (or don't believe they have) enough food to rapidly mature to adulthood. In both cases, we can understand the change in priorities as an attempt to wait out temporarily adverse conditions, waiting for things to change for the better so that the process of maturing to adulthood and sexual maturity can begin again. The DNA repair mutants, sadly, don't know that there's nothing temporary about their adversity."
Link: http://ouroboros.wordpress.com/2007/01/24/how-premature-aging-resembles-calorie-restriction/