Mannoheptulos as Calorie Restriction Mimetic
The success of Sirtris at enriching its founders has given further impetus to the field of calorie restriction mimetic compounds. Scientists respond to the same incentives as the rest of us, after all. Here, Science News notes one of the latest lines of investigation. Researchers "have been mining avocados [for] MH (mannoheptulose)]. It's a fairly simple sugar with a 7-carbon backbone. When fed to mice in fairly concentrated doses (roughly 300 milligrams per kilogram of an animal's body weight), it improved insulin sensitivity and the clearance of glucose from the blood. Meaning it helped overcome diabetes-like impairments to blood-sugar control. MH supplementation also improved the ability of insulin, a hormone, to get cells throughout the body to do its bidding (and that's a good thing). MH revved up the burning of fats in muscle. That's the opposite of fat deposition and something that these scientists note 'would be an expected effect of a calorie restriction mimetic.' Treated mice also lived longer - some 30 percent longer than untreated animals. ... their food intake and weight matched that of untreated mice."
Link: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/43015/title/Coming_Ersatz_calorie_restriction