More Opinions On Calorie Restriction Longevity

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Do you want to live a longer life in good health? Simple practices can make some difference, such as exercise or calorie restriction. But over the long haul all that really matters is progress in medicine: building new classes of therapy to repair and reverse the known root causes of aging. The sooner these treatments arrive, the more lives will be saved. Find out how to help »

Everyone's willing to hazard an estimate on the longevity induced by the practice of calorie restriction these days, it seems. The Advertiser interviews one of the scientists behind a paper I noted recently: "Calorie restriction prolongs life. There's no question about this effect. That is true in the rat and it's also true in the mouse. In a human it's another matter. Human beings can live to 100 years so you have to run a longer study ... a range of shorter studies on humans [show] calorie reduction leads to a reduction in risk factors for major killer diseases .. One study showed that if there are no risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes when a man is 50, then 55 per cent of those men will live to 85. Another showed that if no risk factors are present at 50, 65 per cent of women and 50 per cent of men will live to 85. Based on these and other studies, Dr Everitt estimates lifelong calorie reduction would extend life by between five and 10 years." The studies strongly suggest that extended life would be much healthier, on average.

Link: http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22369321-2682,00.html