Would You Like to Live Longer?
The evidence for increasing one’s life span (not taking into account our personal religious perspective) through effective food management is enormous and irrefutable. Reduced caloric intake is the only experimental technique that consistently demonstrates an extended life span. This has been shown in all animal species tested, from insects and fish to rats and cats.
There have been literally hundreds of studies on this subject and only a small number are referenced on this page.
Scientists have long known that mice that eat fewer calories live longer. Research has demonstrated the same effect in primates. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that restricting calories by 30 percent significantly increased life span in monkeys. The diet used in the experiment, whilst still providing adequate nourishment, slowed the monkey’s metabolism and reduced their body temperatures, changes similar to the long-lived mice.
Decreased levels of triglycerides and increased HDL (good) cholesterol were also observed. Studies over the years on many different species of animals have confirmed that those animals that were fed less lived longer. In fact, allowing an animal to eat as much food as it desires can reduce its life span by as much as one half.
High nutrient, low calorie eating results in dramatic increases in life span as well as prevention of chronic illness.
From hundreds of scientific studies we see:
– resistance to experimentally induced cancers
– protection from spontaneous and genetically predisposed cancers
– a delay in the onset of late life diseases
– Non-appearance of atherosclerosis and diabetes
– lower cholesterol and triglycerides and increased HDL
– improved insulin sensitivity
– enhancement of the energy conservation mechanism, including reduced body temperature
– reduction in oxidative stress
– reduction in parameters of cellular ageing, including cellular congestion
– enhancement of cellular repair mechanisms, including DNA repair enzymes
– reduction in inflammatory response and immune cell proliferation
– improved defences against environmental stresses
– suppression of the genetic alterations associated with ageing
– protection of genes associated with the removal of oxygen radicals
– inhibited production of metabolites that are potent cross-linking agents
– slowed metabolic rate.
The link between thinness and longevity and obesity and a shorter life span is concrete. Another important consideration in other animal studies is that fat and protein restriction have an additional effect on lengthening life span. Apparently higher fat and higher protein intake promotes hormone production, speeds up reproductive readiness and other indicators of ageing and promotes the growth of certain tumours.
For example, excess protein intake has been shown to raise insulin like growth factor (IGF – 1) levels, which are linked to higher rates of prostate and breast cancer.
In the wide field of longevity research, there is only one finding that has held up over the years: eating less prolongs life, as long as nutrient intake is adequate. All other longevity ideas are merely conjectural and unproven. Such theories include taking hormones such as estrogen, DHEA, growth hormones, melatonin and a whole host of nutritional supplements.
So far, there is no solid evidence that supplying the body with any nutritional elements in excess of those provided by a nutrient – dense diet will prolong life. This is in contrast with the over whelming evidence regarding protein and caloric restriction.
