Wow, who would have thunk that not eating like a pig would be good for you?

So....

If I stop eating completely, I'll live forever?

Now, here's the real question: how much is an extra few years of life really worth to you?

Do they tack onto the end, or can I have a few years of my 20s back?

I understand they have a saying in Russian that translates to:

"He looked up and discovered the sky."

That sort of describes my response to the cited article.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

This isn't your average low-calorie diet, folks. What this is, is basically semi-starvation. To survive periods of famine, people have developed the ability to slow the metabolism down to conserve food resources. Chronic underfeeding mimics famine and the body's metabolism slows down considerably to compensate. Pulse, blood pressure and many different hormone levels can be affected. This is one reason why some animals (turtles) can live to be so ancient.

I think it sounds like a miserable existence, and I wonder if anyone has done mental acuity studies to see if this affects the brain. With so much of our energy (pure glucose, you low-carb fans!!) sucked up by our gray matter, I'd worry about that.

Waht? Ive hanvent notice any degdiri... decrida...degracatio...degradation of my mental accura...acupunctur....acuity since going on a low-carb dite...deit...diet.
But I think Kevin Baker has a point. It reminds me of the joke about the engines falling off the airplane, resulting in delays to their planned arrival time, prompting one passenger to remark, "If they lose that 4th engine, we'll be here all day!"

I am aware of folks that are on semi-starvation diets, but I think we are talking about 1200-1500 calories here, which isn't THAT bad. I mean, not easy, but once you break simple carb cravings, easier than many might suspect.

A couple of interesting add-ons that one can look up at their local library -

*the researchers that isolated a compound called "reservatol" in red wine, which they think turns on similar machinery that tricks the body into thinking it needs to slow things down because it's starving.

* research by "I forget her name" with "I forget the company" (helpful, eh?), that exponentially expanded the lifespan of mice by genetically modifying the way their bodies uses insulin.

The second point is especially relevant, because caloric restriction would tax the insulin pathway much less, and the smaller size of calorically restricted yet youthful rats (in animal studies) would be accounted for by the fact that insulin spikes are necessary to achieve maximum protein synthesis. This peak only happens when GH is also present, and GH and Insulin are present in the body on diametrically opposed ends of a spectrum which depends largely on diet - how much or how little you eat, what you eat and how often.

Which all suggests to me that moderation is the best path - a balance between longevity and quality of life is achieved by a diet somewhere between starvation and gorging; one a lot closer to starvation than the average American is today ...

And all of this line of thinking about aging is ok, but whether you speed up or slow down the metabolism is second-rate to someone actually figuring out how the metabolism can be fixed indefinitely - by lengthening telomeres, or something.

Dani,

I can't think of anyone or anything more miserable than some of the grossly obese slobs who regarlarly waddle into the fitness center where I work out, using mechanical contrivances such as walkers to help support them and their overstuffed guts.

Fact #1 is, every 3500 calories equal a pound of body weight.

Fact #2 is, most people begin accumulating non-metabolised calories once they reach their early 20s.

Fact #3 is, people in this obese society typically have accumulated some 30-40 lbs of such body fat by the time they reach their middle or late 60s.

Fact #4 is, this accumulated fat almost always leads to cardiovascular problems, diabetes, and other physical and medical problems which typically spell out prescriptions for early death.

If you want to survive, nobody but you is responsible for having that happen. If you don't want to survive, that too is up to you.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

I'll have the same as Commander Cody:

"Two triple-cheese, side order of fries"

Eat right, exercise daily & die anyway...

I just don't want to go out with tofu on my breath.

Arnold, I don't disagree with your facts, but the article in question advocates a diet quite a bit different than a weight-loss diet. I wasn't being sarcastic when I called it a "semi-starvation" diet. It is one, and it is to be maintained for life.

I believe you are talking about a sensible diet, aimed at disease prevention. The article is closer to a "supermodel" diet, aimed at slowing the metabolism and actually extending the limits of the human lifespan.

While 1200-1500 calories a day is a good weight-loss diet, the article recommends staying on it for life. Not just heavy people, but everyone. I have a BMI of 22 on about 1800 calories a day, and this is one gal who just ain't gonna ratchet down the calories for the sake of living longer, sorry!

You don't live longer - it just feels like you do.

I've heard anecdotally (from the teevee, so take it for what it's worth) that the 25% calorie reduction regime is associated with memory and concentration problems.

Dean,

I think you are mistaken that the benefits of an extremely low calorie diet can be gained pharmaceutically. Essentially, by drastically reducing dietary intake, one lowers their metabolism. It is the harmful effects of the metabolic process that causes harm to cells. by reducing the entire metabolic process, one avoids those harmful effects. You might be able to inhibit the metabolism pharmaceutically, but the net effect on someone eating a regular diet would be massive weight gain - which has even worse harmful side effects than the metabolic process.

Sorry, folks. There is no short cut available here.

Don't know 'bout you, but I'm fairly certain I'll be going on to another life after this. So I'm going to enjoy myself as much as I can during this one. Sides, for me a low carb diet could be done right suicide inducing (serotonin levels and all that, you know).

BTW, four more days till my first caffeinated drink! (Coming off Paxil and on "Prozac".)

Saw an article on this subject a while back. It pointed out that one of the effects of this level of diet over the long term in men is the production of testosterone drops- a lot- and that has some not-very-nice effects. There were some similar effects on women, also.

Well, from experience - the first couple weeks make you bitchy.

The next couple weeks make you lethargic.

There's a point where people (like the bosses and Overlords) start to notice "something has changed..."

Then, you go back to the usual 2000 +, feel better ,are more productive, and you go "Phew!" WTF was I thinking?

And another fad diet goes down the tubes. Eat right. Exercise. If your body can, it will. If it can't, it won't.

If the idea works as Walford proposes, you'd live to 120-140 years or so if you started in young adulthood (21-25 years), being active and healthy for almost all of those years. You'd be or become skinny, too. www.walford.com, iirc, his latest book is "Beyond the 120 year diet". I'm too old for his recommendations to have much effect, so I'm not seriously following the newsgroup sci.life-extension et all on CRON or whatever it's called now.

Dani is quite correct. The diet cited is a lifelong semi-starvation diet. And I would frankly rather be obese than eat that way anyway.

But Dani: sections of the brain utilize ketones preferentially over glucose, and the actual glucose requirements of those brain sections that do require it are surprisingly tiny compared to the rest of the body.

References available upon request. ;-)

Scott: It is entirely plausible that future research will lead to pharmaceuticals that can both slow down metabolism and retard absorption of caloric intake, or retard fat storage, or reduce appetite permanently, or increase metabolic rate while lowering the actual damage done by same, or simply figure out what chemical processes cause the aging slowdown and duplicate that without the caloric restriction or....... quite honestly, the possibilities are nearly limitless.

This is why almost all serious research can be valuable.

Quite honestly, I don't think you guys are paying attention. We're talking about semi-starvation diets here, lifelong diets that will leave you rail thin, and for which there is much evidence that you will be low on muscle tissue, may have concentration and cognition skills issues, and so on. Oh yes, and you will likely be spending all your waking hours striving not to give in to hunger, although, much like an anorexic, you might be able to get yourself ot the point where you actually enjoy the feeling of constant hunger.

This is extreme stuff, this isn't healthy moderate eating. I doubt if any of you would really want to live like that, although I suppose I could be wrong. In any case, I certainly wouldn't.

Why do I suspect that most of us taking part in this discussion are American?--we seem to be toggling back and forth between extremes, here . . .