How calorie restriction may prolong life. Retrieved November 12, from www. While the benefits of caloric restriction have long been known, the new results Despite numerous studies since, however, researchers have been ScienceDaily shares links with sites in the TrendMD network and earns revenue from third-party advertisers, where indicated.
Print Email Share. Boy or Girl? By Andy Coghlan. A big drop in metabolism. Severely cutting the calories you eat may expand your lifespan, and now we have an idea of why. A study in which people ate 15 per cent fewer calories than usual has found that eating a lot less has big effects on what happens to the body during sleep. Many studies have found that calorie restriction extends the lifespan of animals such as worms , flies, mice and even monkeys.
To investigate this further, Leanne Redman of Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana and her colleagues randomly assigned normal or calorie restricted diets to 53 adults. For two years, 34 of these people ate 15 per cent fewer calories, while the others ate as much as they wanted. But experiments in longer-living humans and other primates are more difficult to conduct and have not yet drawn clear conclusions.
The randomized, controlled trial tested the effects of 2 years of caloric restriction on metabolism in more than healthy, non-obese adults. She leads one of two large, independent studies on calorie restriction in rhesus monkeys, and began her research career studying calorie restriction in yeast. This allows researchers to track how the occupants use energy with unprecedented precision, says Anderson.
At the end of each of the two years, they all underwent a range of tests related to overall metabolism and biological markers of ageing, including damage associated with oxygen free radicals released during metabolism. They were also placed in the metabolic chamber for 24 hours. The scientists found that participants on the diet used energy much more efficiently while sleeping than did the control group.
All the other clinical measurements were in line with reduced metabolic rate, and indicated a decrease in damage due to ageing. Caloric restriction has been known for decades to extend life in different species. These include pathways relevant to insulin sensitivity and the function of mitochondria — tiny structures in cells that use oxygen to generate energy. Subsequent studies revealed that calorie restrictions alter similar pathways in mice and monkeys. CALERIE ran for just two years, and was designed to see whether a calorie-restricted diet in humans induces some of the same metabolic, hormonal and gene-expression adaptations that are thought to be involved in slowing ageing in other species during long-term caloric restriction.
Few people would want, or be able, to restrict their diet as severely as the participants in the study. Other scientists are starting to try out the effect of restricting calories for just a few days every month. Such intermittent restriction has been found to be as effective as continuous calorie restriction in protecting mice against diseases of ageing such as diabetes and neurodegeneration 2.
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