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Calorie Restriction

News & Research:

• Fasting and its possible role in longevity - YouTube, Good Morning America, Dr. David Sinclair of Harvard
• Intermittent Fasting Plus Exercise a Good Option for Fatty Liver - Medscape, 2/21/23 - "Our findings also indicate that the combination intervention was effective for reducing body weight, fat mass, waist circumference, [the liver enzyme alanine transaminase (ALT)], fasting insulin, [and] insulin resistance, and increasing insulin sensitivity, among patients with obesity and NAFLD, versus controls ... When we compared the results of our study groups, we saw clearly that the most improved patients were in the group that followed the alternate-day fasting diet and exercised 5 days a week"
• Researchers May Have Found a Way to Slow Human Aging - Time, 2/9/23 - "For decades, researchers have studied calorie restriction as a potential method of extending lifespan. Numerous promising trials, some dating back almost a century, have been conducted in animals—but the new study, published Feb. 9 in Nature Aging, is significant because it demonstrates that calorie restriction may also slow aging in humans ... The third model was meant to find the rate at which someone is aging, rather than their current biological age. Under that framework, the researchers found that two years of calorie restriction led to a 2% to 3% slower pace of aging. That may not sound like much, but, according to the study’s authors, previous research suggests a similar slow-down in biological aging could reduce someone’s risk of death by up to 15%—roughly the same longevity benefit associated with quitting a smoking habit."
• Shorter Intervals Between Meals Linked to Higher Mortality - Medscape, 12/1/22 - "eating one meal per day — compared with three — is associated with higher mortality, both cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related as well as all-cause mortality ... And when researchers looked at the intervals between meals, they found mixed results. Eating at intervals of 4.5 hours or less or more than 5.5 hours – compared with 4.6-5.5 hours -- was significantly associated with all-cause mortality but nonsignificantly associated with CVD mortality (Table 2)"
• Empagliflozin and Elderly Patients With Preserved Ejection Fraction Heart Failure: Is Age Just a Number? - Medscape, 10/17/22 - "Major molecular regulators of cellular lifespan are sirtuin-1 (SIRT1) and mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1). In a nutrient-deficient or calorie-restricted state, SIRT1 activation, along with adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator (PGC-1α) set forth a cascade of downstream target activations culminating in deceleration of cell aging. Suppression of the mTORC1 pathway further augments SIRT1-activated autophagy, the lysosome-utilizing process of clearing misfolded proteins from the cytosol. Without healthy autophagy, oxidative stress contributes to impaired endothelial nitric oxide (NO) pathways, inflammation, cell death, fibrosis, and cardiomyopathy (adapted from Gevaert et al1). SGLT2 inhibitors are hypothesized to contribute to activation of SIRT1 and suppression of mTORC1 pathways.10 Akt = protein kinase B; HFpEF = heart failure with preserved ejection fraction; ROS = reactive oxygen species ... Aside from the obvious bedside clinical implications, the findings of Bohm et al[7] cause us to wonder more about the mechanistic impact of SGLT2 inhibition on multiple cardiovascular and noncardiovascular therapeutic targets. SGLT2 inhibitors induce glycosuria and reduce insulin levels, which promotes a ketogenic and fatty acid oxidation state, mimicking calorie restriction physiology, which has been associated with cellular stress resistance, attenuation of cellular senescence, and reduced oxidative stress-induced tissue damage.[9] Such pathway activation is hypothesized to assuage metabolic disease, alleviate endothelial and vascular inflammation, and mitigate the clinically observed arterial stiffness associated with the HFpEF syndrome" - See empagliflozin inhousepharmacy.vu.
• Regular Fasting Linked to Less Severe COVID: Study - WebMD, 8/10/22 - "Intermittent fasting has already shown to lower inflammation and improve cardiovascular health ... But among those who tested positive for the virus, fewer patients were hospitalized for COVID or died during the study follow-up if they had fasted regularly (11%) than if they had not fasted regularly (29%) ... Fasting reduces inflammation, and after 12 to 14 hours of fasting, the body switches from using glucose in the blood to using ketones, including linoleic acid"
• People who practice intermittent fasting experience less severe complications from COVID-19, study finds - Science Daily, 7/7/22 - "COVID-19 patients who practiced regular water-only intermittent fasting had lower risk of hospitalization or dying due to the virus than patients who did not"
• Multiple treatments to slow age-related muscle wasting - Science Daily, 4/20/22 - "Researchers led by Professor Markus Rüegg at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel have demonstrated in mice that both calorie restriction and the drug rapamycin have a positive effect on aging skeletal muscle" - See siromus at ReliableRXPharmacy.
• Antioxidant Potential, DNA Damage, Inflammation, Glycemic Control and Lipid Metabolism Alteration: A Mediation Analysis of Islamic Sunnah Intermittent Fasting on Cognitive Function among Older Adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment - J Nutr Health Aging 2022 - "changes in antioxidant function, DNA damage, inflammation and a limited set of metabolic biomarkers (insulin and HDL cholesterol) may mediate improvements in cognitive function among older participants with MCI who practice Islamic Sunnah IF"
• Calorie restriction trial reveals key factors in extending human health - Science Daily, 2/10/22 - "Because we know that chronic low-grade inflammation in humans is a major trigger of many chronic diseases and, therefore, has a negative effect on life span ... Here we're asking: What is calorie restriction doing to the immune and metabolic systems and if it is indeed beneficial, how can we harness the endogenous pathways that mimic its effects in humans? ... As we get older, we begin to feel the absence of new T cells because the ones we have left aren't great at fighting new pathogens ... That's one of the reasons why elderly people are at greater risk for illness ... They found that the thymus glands in participants with limited calorie intake had less fat and greater functional volume after two years of calorie restriction, meaning they were producing more T cells than they were at the start of the study. But participants who weren't restricting their calories had no change in functional volume ... They honed in on the gene for PLA2G7 -- or group VII A platelet activating factor acetylhydrolase -- which was one of the genes significantly inhibited following calorie restriction. PLA2G7 is a protein produced by immune cells known as macrophages ... These findings demonstrate that PLA2G7 is one of the drivers of the effects of calorie restriction ... Identifying these drivers helps us understand how the metabolic system and the immune system talk to each other, which can point us to potential targets that can improve immune function, reduce inflammation, and potentially even enhance healthy lifespan ... it might be possible to manipulate PLA2G7 and get the benefits of calorie restriction without having to actually restrict calories"
• My Journey With Intermittent Fasting: What Worked, What Proved Challenging - Medscape, 1/21/22 - "I chose the 16:8 regimen, believing it to be best for a nurse working from home. I fast from 8 PM at night until noon the following day. All food intake is restricted to the hours between noon and 8 PM. Although this method has been less effective in studies of weight loss than the other two, this may have more to do with a lack of guidance regarding caloric intake than with the method of fasting. I have a colleague who faithfully followed the time-restricted method, but he also ate healthfully during the hours of food intake. He exercised during the morning and allowed himself light meals, carefully counting calories during the hours he was allowed to eat. He kept to a regimen of 1200 calories per day ... At the conclusion of 6 weeks, he had lost 22 pounds and gained an immense amount of energy. He reported improved sleep and reduced body aches and pains. This follows what researchers have observed regarding the benefits of intermittent fasting ... The human body was designed to go for prolonged periods without food intake. Our ancestors spent hours hunting for food, often going for extended intervals without nutrition. During periods of fasting, the body can jump-start mechanisms related to glucose consumption, healing, and restoration. Human trials have demonstrated the positive effects of intermittent fasting, which include improvement in chronic health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity, neurologic disease, and even cancer."
• Intermittent Fasting Works, Helps at Least in the Short Term - WebMD, 12/23/21 - "Combined results from a total of 130 clinical trials show that intermittent fasting could help reduce weight, body mass index (BMI), body fat, “bad” cholesterol, fasting blood sugar, and blood pressure, among other risk factors associated with obesity ... Two specific types of intermittent fasting were associated with significant weight loss and other health benefits. One, called modified alternate-day fasting, involves alternating one day of eating as usual with consuming no more than 600 the next day ... The other, called the “5:2 Diet” is similar, but involves 2 days per week of zero or very low-calorie eating and 5 days of normal eating"
• Long Period of Daily Fasting Improves Metabolism, Lifespan in Mice - WebMD, 11/9/21 - "The mice that ate all their food in a single morning meal, whether calorie-restricted or not, had lower blood sugar, better use of fat stores for energy, less frailty as they aged, and longer lifespans ... In other words, these results in mice suggest that a prolonged daily fasting period offers similar benefits to calorie reduction"
• Intermittent fasting can help manage metabolic disease - Science Daily, 9/22/21 - "Eating your daily calories within a consistent window of 8-10 hours is a powerful strategy to prevent and manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease"
• Benefits of time-restricted eating depend on age and sex  - Science Daily, 8/17/21 - "TRE is good not only for metabolic disease but also for increased resilience against infectious diseases and insulin resistance ... regardless of age, sex or weight loss profile, TRE strongly protected against fatty liver disease, a condition that affects up to 100 million Americans and for which no medicine has been approved ... although the females on TRE were not protected from weight gain, they still showed metabolic benefits, including less-fatty livers and better-controlled blood sugar ... TRE may protect both males and females from sepsis-induced death -- a particular danger in ICUs, especially during the pandemic. After administering a toxin that induced a sepsis-like condition in the mice, the researchers monitored survival rates for 13 days and found that TRE protected both male and female mice from dying of sepsis ... TRE didn't just protect against fatty liver disease, diabetes, and death from sepsis; it even enabled male mice to preserve and add muscle mass and improve muscle performance (the effect did not hold for females)."
• Fasting may help ward off infections, study in mice suggests - Science Daily, 8/5/21 - "These data suggest that therapeutic fasting or calorie restriction has the potential to beneficially modulate infectious and potentially non-infectious gastrointestinal diseases ... When food is limited, the microbiome appears to sequester the nutrients that remain, preventing pathogens from acquiring the energy they need to infect the host. While more research is needed, fasting or otherwise adjusting food intake could be exploited therapeutically to modulate infectious diseases in the future"
• The effects of Ramadan intermittent fasting on liver function in healthy adults: A systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression - Diabetes Res Clin Pract 2021 Jul 14 - "liver function tests (LFT) ... Ramadan diurnal intermittent fasting (RDIF) ... RDIF induces significant but small (AST, ALP, BLU) to medium (GGT) positive changes on LFT, and may confer a transient, short-term protection against fatty liver disease in healthy subjects"
• Fasting lowers blood pressure by reshaping the gut microbiota - Science Daily, 4/29/21 - "Taken together, the study shows for the first time that intermittent fasting can be beneficial in terms of reducing hypertension by reshaping the composition of gut microbiota in an animal model. The work also provides evidence that gut dysbiosis contributes to hypertension by altering bile acid signaling"
• Fasting can be an effective way to start a diet - Science Daily, 3/30/21 - "If a high-fibre, low-fat diet fails to deliver results, it is possible that there are insufficient gut bacteria in the gut microbiome that metabolise fibre into protective fatty acids. "Those who have this problem often feel that it is not worth the effort and go back to their old habits," explains the scientist. It is therefore a good idea to combine a diet with a fast. "Fasting acts as a catalyst for protective microorganisms in the gut. Health clearly improves very quickly and patients can cut back on their medication or even often stop taking tablets altogether." This could motivate them to stick to a healthy lifestyle in the long term."
• Time-Restricted Eating Shows No Weight Loss Benefit in RCT - Medscape, 10/1/20 - "At baseline, participants had a mean weight of 99.2 kg (approximately 219 lb). Their mean age was 46.5 years and 60.3% were men. They were drawn from anywhere in the United States and received study surveys through a custom mobile study application (app) on the Eureka Research Platform. They were given a Bluetooth weight scale to use daily, which was connected with the app, and randomized to one of the two interventions. A subset of 50 participants living near San Francisco underwent in-person testing ... At the end of the 12 weeks, those in the time-restricted eating group (n = 59) did have a significant decrease in weight compared with baseline (−0.94 kg; P = .01), while weight loss in the consistent meal group (n = 57) was not significant (−0.68 kg; P = .07) ... But importantly, the difference in weight loss between the groups was not significant" - [NYT] - Note:  You watch.  It will be like the fish oil studies where they said for years that it was great for heart disease.  Then someone came out with a study saying it was worthless so everyone believed that study.  Now they're saying again that fish oil is great for heart disease.
• Linking calorie restriction, body temperature and healthspan - Science Daily, 9/9/20 - "Conti's previous work showed that temperature reduction can increase lifespan independently of calorie restriction -- and that these effects involve activation of certain cellular processes, most of which remain to be identified ... "It's not easy to discern what's driving the beneficial changes of calorie restriction," Conti says. "Is it the reduced calories on their own, or the change in body temperature that typically happens when one consumes fewer calories? Or is it a combination of both?" ... The data we collected showed that temperature has an equal or greater effect than nutrients on metabolism during calorie restriction"
• Intermittent Fasting May Aid Weight Loss - NYT, 7/27/20 - "In an eight-week trial, published in Cell Metabolism, scientists randomly assigned 58 obese men and women to three groups. The first ate whatever they wanted without counting calories, but only between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. The second ate what they wanted between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. The third, a control group, ate without restrictions ... In both of the groups that practiced time-restricted fasting, participants consumed an average of 550 fewer calories a day and lost about 3 percent of their body weight. Compared with the controls, both groups had significantly reduced fat mass, reductions in oxidative stress, and reductions in both fasting insulin and insulin resistance, which suggest a reduced risk for diabetes. Blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol and triglyceride levels were unaffected."
• How long should you fast for weight loss? - Science Daily, 7/15/20 - "Participants in the 4-hour time-restricted feeding diet group were asked to eat only between the hours of 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Participants in the 6-hour time-restricted feeding diet group were asked to eat only between the hours of 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. ... participants in both daily fasting groups reduced calorie intake by about 550 calories each day simply by adhering to the schedule and lost about 3% of their body weight. The researchers also found that insulin resistance and oxidative stress levels were reduced among participants in the study groups when compared with the control group. There was no effect on blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol or triglycerides."
• A combo of fasting plus vitamin C is effective for hard-to-treat cancers, study shows - Science Daily, 5/12/20 - "while fasting remains a challenging option for cancer patients, a safer, more feasible option is a low-calorie, plant-based diet that causes cells to respond as if the body were fasting. Their findings suggest that a low-toxicity treatment of fasting-mimicking diet plus vitamin C has the potential to replace more toxic treatments ... When used alone, fasting-mimicking diet or vitamin C alone reduced cancer cell growth and caused a minor increase in cancer cell death. But when used together, they had a dramatic effect, killing almost all cancerous cells ... Longo and his colleagues detected this strong effect only in cancer cells that had a mutation that is regarded as one of the most challenging targets in cancer research. These mutations in the KRAS gene signal the body is resisting most cancer-fighting treatments, and they reduce a patient's survival rate. KRAS mutations occur in approximately a quarter of all human cancers and are estimated to occur in up to half of all colorectal cancers ... The research team's prior studies showed that fasting and a fasting-mimicking diet slow cancer's progression and make chemotherapy more effective in tumor cells, while protecting normal cells from chemotherapy-associated side effects. The combination enhances the immune system's anti-tumor response in breast cancer and melanoma mouse models ... At least five clinical trials, including one at USC on breast cancer and prostate cancer patients, are now investigating the effects of the fasting-mimicking diets in combination with different cancer-fighting drugs" - See vitamin C products at Amazon.com and vitamin C at iHerb.com.
• How intermittent fasting changes liver enzymes and helps prevent disease - Science Daily, 3/10/20 - "every-other-day-fasting -- where no food was consumed on alternate days -- changed the metabolism of fatty acids in the liver, knowledge that could be applied to improvements in glucose tolerance and the regulation of diabetes ... Last year we published research into the impact of every-other-day-fasting on humans. Using these mouse data, we can now build up improved models of fasting for better human health"
• The Benefits of Intermittent Fasting - NYT, 2/17/20 - "Most people trying to lose weight should strive for 16 calorie-free hours, he said, adding that “the easiest way to do this is to stop eating by 8 p.m., skip breakfast the next morning and then eat again at noon the next day.” (Caffeine-dependent people can have sugar- free black coffee or tea before lunch.) But don’t expect to see results immediately; it can take up to four weeks to notice an effect, he said ... Other animal studies have shown a “robust disease-modifying” benefit of intermittent fasting on “a wide range of chronic disorders, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and neurodegenerative brain diseases,” the researchers reported ... For example, human studies of intermittent fasting found that it improved such disease indicators as insulin resistance, blood fat abnormalities, high blood pressure and inflammation, even independently of weight loss ... during a fast, the body produces few new proteins, prompting cells to take protein from nonessential sources, break them down and use the amino acids to make new proteins that are essential for survival. Then, after eating, a lot of new proteins are produced in the brain and elsewhere."
• Intermittent fasting: Live 'fast,' live longer? - Science Daily, 12/26/19 - "Intermittent fasting diets, he says, fall generally into two categories: daily time-restricted feeding, which narrows eating times to 6-8 hours per day, and so-called 5:2 intermittent fasting, in which people limit themselves to one moderate-sized meal two days each week ... An array of animal and some human studies have shown that alternating between times of fasting and eating supports cellular health, probably by triggering an age-old adaptation to periods of food scarcity called metabolic switching. Such a switch occurs when cells use up their stores of rapidly accessible, sugar-based fuel, and begin converting fat into energy in a slower metabolic process ... studies have shown that this switch improves blood sugar regulation, increases resistance to stress and suppresses inflammation. Because most Americans eat three meals plus snacks each day, they do not experience the switch, or the suggested benefits ... four studies in both animals and people found intermittent fasting also decreased blood pressure, blood lipid levels and resting heart rates ... intermittent fasting could benefit brain health too. A multicenter clinical trial at the University of Toronto in April found that 220 healthy, nonobese adults who maintained a calorie restricted diet for two years showed signs of improved memory in a battery of cognitive tests"
• Clinical study finds eating within 10-hour window may help stave off diabetes, heart disease - Science Daily, 12/5/19 - "a 10-hour time-restricted eating intervention, when combined with traditional medications, resulted in weight loss, reduced abdominal fat, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, and more stable blood sugar and insulin levels for participants ... Unlike counting calories, time-restricted eating is a simple dietary intervention to incorporate, and we found that participants were able to keep the eating schedule ... Time-restricted eating (eating all calories within a consistent 10-hour window) supports an individual's circadian rhythms and can maximize health benefits ... Eating and drinking everything (except water) within a consistent 10-hour window allows your body to rest and restore for 14 hours at night ... To reduce food intake to the 10-hour window, most participants delayed their first meal and advanced their last meal each day, so meals were not skipped. Although calories were not recommended to be reduced for the intervention, some participants did report eating less, likely due to the shorter eating window ... Overall, participants experienced improved sleep as well as a 3-4 percent reduction in body weight, body mass index, abdominal fat and waist circumference. Major risk factors for heart disease were diminished as participants showed reduced blood pressure and total cholesterol. Blood sugar levels and insulin levels also showed a trend toward improvement"
• Alternate-Day Fasting in Short Term Safe, Has Metabolic Benefits - Medscape, 8/27/19 - "The metabolic findings suggest that ADF may be safer than CR, which is more widely practiced ... CR was previously associated with concerns about bone metabolism or immune cell function. Neither in our short-term randomized, controlled study nor in the 6-months ADF cohort did we observe adverse effects on bone mass, total white blood cell count, or abundance of immune cell subtypes, red blood cell counts, or iron metabolism ... The metabolic findings suggest that ADF may be safer than CR, which is more widely practiced ... The apparent safety of ADF may arise from its mimicking eating patterns of our hunter-and-gatherer forebears ... Our physiology is familiar with periods of starvation followed by food excesses ... For example, starvation sets in motion autophagy, in which cells dismantle and recycle damaged parts, such as organelles and proteins, associated with aging. "Autophagy improves the metabolic functions of cells, and it is switched on after 36 hours of fasting," he said."
• Fasting ramps up human metabolism, study shows - Science Daily, 1/31/19 - "The researchers monitored changing levels of metabolites -- substances formed during the chemical processes that grant organisms energy and allow them to grow. The results revealed 44 metabolites, including 30 that were previously unrecognized, that increased universally among subjects between 1.5- to 60-fold within just 58 hours of fasting ... In previous research, the G0 Cell Unit identified various metabolites whose quantities decline with age, including three known as leucine, isoleucine, and ophthalmic acid. In fasting individuals, these metabolites increase in level, suggesting a mechanism by which fasting could help increase longevity ... These are very important metabolites for maintenance of muscle and antioxidant activity, respectively ... For example, they found a global increase in substances produced by the citric acid cycle, a process by which organisms release energy stored in the chemical bonds of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids. The marked increase suggests that, during fasting, the tiny powerhouses running every cell are thrown into overdrive."
• Less fat, more hair and younger skin: Study in mice shows benefits from calorie-restricted diet - Science Daily, 10/30/17 - "After six months, the body mass of the mice fed a caloric restriction (CR) diet was 40% lower than that of the mice fed an unrestricted diet. This change was not due to the mice losing weight; the mice fed a CR diet did not gain as much weight as the mice that could eat ad libitum. As the fat that helps keep the body warm diminished in CR mice, the adaptive response of their skin was to stimulate fur growth, and after six months, their fur was more uniform, thicker and longer ... Skin vascularization also changed. Compared with the obese group, the CR group had three times more blood vessels in their skin. This change increased blood flow to skin cells ... Conversely, signs of premature skin aging appeared in the overweight mice. "The change in vasoconstriction helped the slimmer mice stay warm, and their skin also remained young," ... CR mice lost muscle mass and became lethargic"
• Face cream ingredient found to mimic life-extending effects of a calorie restriction diet - Science Daily, 12/16/15 - "scientists have shown for the first time that allantoin, which is found in botanical extracts of the comfrey plant and is an ingredient of many anti-ageing creams, can mimic the effect of calorie restriction and increase lifespan in worms by more than 20% ... worms treated with allantoin, rapamycin, trichostatin A and LY-294002 not only lived longer, but also stayed healthier longer. Additionally, when the same compounds were tested in mutant worms they extended lifespan in a way expected from calorie restriction" - See allantoin products at Amazon.com.
• Long life: Balancing protein and carb intake may work as well as calorie restriction - Science Daily, 5/28/15 - "The investigators compared three 8-week diets varying in protein-to-carbohydrate ratio under conditions where food was restricted or food was available at all times. Of the three, low protein, high carbohydrate (LPHC) diets offered when food was always available delivered similar benefits as calorie restriction in terms of insulin, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels, despite increased food intake ... Even though the mice on LPHC diets ate more when food was always available, their metabolism was higher than that of mice on the calorie-restricted diet, and they did not gain more weight. Calorie restriction did not provide any additional benefits for LPHC mice"
• Metformin use associated with reduced risk of developing open-angle glaucoma - Science Daily, 5/28/15 - "patients prescribed the highest amount of metformin (greater than 1,110 grams in two years) had a 25 percent reduced risk of OAG risk compared with those who took no metformin. Every one-gram increase in metformin was associated with a 0.16 percent reduction in OAG risk, which means that taking a standard dose of 2 grams of metformin per day for two years would result in a 20.8 percent reduction in risk of OAG ... this study points out the importance of understanding the potential impact of CR (caloric restriction) mimetic drugs on the risk of developing other medical conditions that affect older persons" - See metformin at The Antiaging Store.
• Caloric restriction: A fountain of youth for aging muscles? - Science Daily, 4/22/15 - "while 14 weeks of calorie restriction did not significantly affect the middle-aged rats, it reduced muscle mass in the young rats. Calorie restriction slowed the glycolytic rate in the muscles and increased the cells' dependency for OXPHOS versus glycolysis in older rats, which was linked to improvement of normalized muscle mass. The team also found that "14 weeks of CR reprogrammed cellular metabolism, where the relative contribution of OXPHOS and glycolysis in muscles of middle-aged rats with CR was similar to that in muscles of young rats"
• Improved Survival in Cancer Patients With High Vitamin D - Medscape, 5/1/14 - "overall survival for colorectal and breast cancer patients in the highest quartile of circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] levels was significantly better than it was for those in the lowest quartile of 25(OH)D levels ... Overall survival was also significantly better for lymphoma patients in the highest 25(OH)D quartile compared with those in the lowest quartile ... Considering that vitamin D deficiency is widespread around the world, our suggestion is to ensure everyone has sufficient levels of this important nutrient — that is, circulating 25(OH)D levels — greater than 75 nmol/L ... when investigators compared 25(OH)D levels in the range of 40 to 70 nmol/L to levels <19 nmol/L, they found that a 10-nmol/L increase in circulating vitamin D levels upon cancer diagnosis was associated with a 4% reduction in all-cause mortality among all cancer patients in whom a dose-response relationship was assessed" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Pill linked to long life in mice - BBC News, 7/31/13 - "Scientists believe the drug, metformin, may mimic the effects of extreme calorie restriction ... Metformin is one of the most widely prescribed treatments for type-2 diabetes, which occurs mainly in people above the age of 40. It is also used to treat metabolic syndrome, a combination of diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity ... The scientists gave one of two different doses of metformin to middle-aged male mice and found that lower doses increased lifespan by about 5%, and also delayed the onset of age-associated diseases" - Note:  I've been taking it in low doses for years to help combat aging.  See metformin at The Antiaging Store.
• How diabetes drug delays aging in worms - Science Daily, 3/28/13 - "Following a calorie-restricted diet has been shown to improve health in later life and extend lifespan in a number of animals, ranging from the simple worm to rhesus monkeys. The type 2 diabetes drug metformin has been found to have similar effects in animals ... Overall, treatment with metformin adds up to 6 days of life for the worm which is equivalent to around a third of its normal lifespan. It seems to work by altering metabolism in the bacteria that live in the worm, which in turn limits the nutrients that are available to the worm host and has a similar effect to restricting the diet ... However, when they added an excess of sugar to the diet, the team found that the life-extending effects of metformin were cancelled out" - See metformin at The Antiaging Store.
• A Few Extra Pounds Linked to a Longer Life - WebMD, 1/1/13 - "The review, of 97 studies that included a combined 2.88 million people, questions the notion that people of normal weight live longest ... People with BMIs under 30 but above normal were less likely to die during the studies compared to people with normal BMIs ... A reduction in the risk of death from all causes was about 6% lower for people who were overweight ... Those people considered obese based on BMI, however, were worse off. They were about 18% more likely to die of any cause compared to those of normal weights"
• Dieting Monkeys Don't Always Live Longer, Says Study - ABC News, 8/29/12 - "As the latest Nature dispatch found, the NIA monkeys fed a calorie-restricted diet didn't live any longer than monkeys on a higher-calorie diet. No matter what they ate, maximum lifespan seems to hover around 40 years of age. Half the monkeys that began the study as youngsters were still alive, but the researchers say, based on survival patterns, they predict the remaining calorie-restrictors and controls will all live to be about the same age ... These latest findings are at odds with the WNPRC study in which calorie-restricted monkeys have far outlived the controls ... the study design might account for some of the disparities ... For one thing, the Wisconsin monkeys subsisted on a diet that shared many of the same unhealthy aspects of a typical Western diet ... The NIA monkeys were already eating so healthy to begin with, the calorie reduction may not have provided much more of a health advantage"
• Calorie-restricted diet keeps heart young - Science Daily, 6/6/12
• Red wine antioxidant could give metabolism a boost - USATODAY.com, 11/1/11 - "For the study, Schrauwen's team gave resveratrol to 11 obese, but otherwise healthy men. The men took 150 milligrams of the supplement a day for 30 days. To get that much resveratrol from wine would mean drinking over two gallons of wine a day ... resveratrol acted much like a low-calorie diet in terms of reducing energy expenditure and improving metabolism and overall health ... Changes included a lower metabolic rate, reduced fat in the liver, lower blood pressure and lower blood sugar. The men also had changes in the way their muscles burned fat ... In obesity, it's not clear whether burning fewer calories is a good or a bad thing ... It suggests, however, that cells were functioning more efficiently, as they do on a calorie-restricted diet" - [ABC News] - See resveratrol products at Amazon.com.
• Live longer with fewer calories? Key enzyme involved in aging process found - Science Daily, 10/31/11 - "We are able to show that caloric restriction slows down aging by preventing an enzyme, peroxiredoxin, from being inactivated. This enzyme is also extremely important in counteracting damage to our genetic material ... Prx1 is damaged during aging and loses its activity. Caloric restriction counteracts this by increasing the production of another enzyme, Srx1, which repairs Prx1. Interestingly, the study also shows that aging can be delayed without caloric restriction by only increasing the quantity of Srx1 in the cell. Repair of the peroxiredoxin Prx1 consequently emerges as a key process in aging ... Impaired Prx1 function leads to various types of genetic defects and cancer. Conversely, we can now speculate whether increased repair of Prx1 during aging can counteract, or at least delay, the development of cancer"
• Research from Everest: Can leucine help burn fat and spare muscle tissue during exercise? - Science Daily, 8/28/11 - "Research on Mt. Everest climbers is adding to the evidence that an amino acid called leucine -- found in foods, dietary supplements, energy bars and other products -- may help people burn fat during periods of food restriction, such as climbing at high altitude, while keeping their muscle tissue ... We knew that leucine has been shown to help people on very low-calorie, or so-called 'calorie-restricted diets', stay healthy at sea level ... the findings also could help people at lower altitudes who want to lose weight while preserving their lean body mass, or who are elderly and don't eat or exercise enough to maintain their strength" - See leucine products at Amazon.com.
• Fat and healthy? Study finds slim isn't always superior - Science Daily, 8/15/11 - "obese people who are otherwise healthy live just as long as their slim counterparts, and are less likely to die of cardiovascular causes ... Kuk's team looked at 6,000 obese Americans over a 16-year span, comparing their mortality risk with that of lean individuals" - Note:  I though this in because it makes you wonder if being cranky all your life from calorie restriction is worth it.
• Mouse study turns fat-loss/longevity link on its head - Science Daily, 5/3/11 - "studied the effect of food restriction on fat and weight loss in 41 genetically different strains of mice. The scientists then correlated the amount of fat reduction to life span ... The answer: Mice that maintained their fat actually lived longer. Those that lost fat died earlier ... People are best advised to adopt a moderate approach, not losing all fat but definitely not keeping unhealthy amounts of fat, either ... None of the mice in this study were what we would consider to be obese"
• Routine periodic fasting is good for your health, and your heart, study suggests - Science Daily, 4/3/11 - "fasting not only lowers one's risk of coronary artery disease and diabetes, but also causes significant changes in a person's blood cholesterol levels ... fasting was also found to reduce other cardiac risk factors, such as triglycerides, weight, and blood sugar levels ... During the 24-hour fasting periods, HGH increased an average of 1,300 percent in women, and nearly 2,000 percent in men"
• Exercise and caloric restriction rejuvenate synapses in lab mice - Science Daily, 8/2/10
• Eat less, live longer? - New Scientist, 6/3/10 - "One piece of evidence for this idea comes from studies in fruit flies and rodents. If these animals are fed special diets with less amino acids - the building blocks of proteins - they can eat as many calories as they want and still live longer ... The protein theory is bad news for people on low-carbohydrate weight-loss plans like the Atkins diet. "I'd be wary of diets that put a heavy emphasis on protein," says Piper. "It's hard to see how that could be healthy." Fontana goes one step further, saying that high-protein diets could risk accelerated ageing and cancer ... There may be another reason for vegans to celebrate. Studies on flies and rodents suggest that cutting intake of one particular amino acid, called methionine, lengthens life to a similar degree as calorie restriction. Proteins in meat and other animal products have high levels of methionine, so a vegan diet would score well by that measure, too"
• Calorie restriction leads scientists to molecular pathways that slow aging, improve health - Science Daily, 4/15/10 - "About 30 percent of the animals on calorie restriction die at an advanced age without any diseases normally related to aging," Fontana says. "In contrast, among animals on a standard diet, the great majority (94 percent) develop and die of one or more chronic diseases such as cancer or heart disease. In 30 percent to 50 percent of the animals on calorie restriction, or with genetic mutations in these aging-related pathways, healthspan is equal to lifespan. They eventually die, but they don't get sick."
• Overweight Older People Live Longer - WebMD, 1/28/10 - "people who met the criteria for being overweight were 17% less likely to die compared to people of normal weight ... In the newly reported research, overweight study participants in their 70s followed for up to 10 years had a 13% lower risk of death than participants classified as normal weight ... Obese and normal-weight study participants had a similar risk of death over the 10 years of follow-up. Underweight study participants had the highest risk of death, even after the researchers adjusted for the wasting effects of disease"
• Calorie restriction: Scientists take important step toward 'fountain of youth' - Science Daily, 12/26/09 - "They found that the normal cells lived longer, and many of the precancerous cells died, when given less glucose. Gene activity was also measured under these same conditions. The reduced glucose caused normal cells to have a higher activity of the gene that dictates the level of telomerase, an enzyme that extends their lifespan and lower activity of a gene (p16) that slows their growth. Epigenetic effects (effects not due to gene mutations) were found to be a major cause in changing the activity of these genes as they reacted to decreased glucose levels" - See my Insulin and Aging page.  Insulin controls glucose levels.  Insulin resistance causes high glucose.
• Scientists find molecular trigger that helps prevent aging and disease - Science Daily, 11/18/09 - "diabetes reduces activation of CBP, leading Dr. Mobbs to conclude that a high-calorie diet that leads to diabetes would have the opposite effect of dietary restriction and would accelerate aging"
• Click here of a 10/5/09 news clip (I put it on YouTube) that claims that metformin may provide the same anti-aging benefits as calorie restriction (you won't need to look like a POW).  Metformin is another one I take for anti-aging.  In addition to the calorie restriction type benefits, see my Insulin and Aging page.
• The Way You Eat May Affect Your Risk For Breast Cancer - Science Daily, 8/4/09
• Reduced Diet Thwarts Aging, Disease In Monkeys - Science Daily, 7/9/09 - "We observed that caloric restriction reduced the risk of developing an age-related disease by a factor of three and increased survival ... The incidence of cancerous tumors and cardiovascular disease in animals on a restricted diet was less than half that seen in animals permitted to eat freely. Remarkably, while diabetes or impaired glucose regulation is common in monkeys that can eat all they want, it has yet to be observed in any animal on a restricted diet" Makes you wonder why the next is true:
• Study: Overweight People Live Longer - WebMD, 6/25/09 - "There is more evidence that people who are overweight tend to live longer than people who are underweight, normal weight, or obese ... Those classified as underweight were 73% more likely to die ... Those classified as extremely obese with BMI of 35 or greater were 36% more likely to die ... Those classified as obese with BMI 30-34.9 had about the same risk of death ... Those classified as overweight with BMI 25-29.9 were 17% less likely to die"
• Glucose-To-Glycerol Conversion In Long-lived Yeast Provides Anti-aging Effects - Science Daily, 5/13/09
• Calorie Restriction Causes Temporal Changes In Liver Metabolism - Science Daily, 5/4/09
• Not So Sweet: Over-consumption Of Sugar Linked To Aging - Science Daily, 3/9/09 - "We know that lifespan can be extended in animals by restricting calories such as sugar intake ...it's not sugar itself that is important in this process but the ability of cells to sense its presence ... the lifespan of yeast cells increased when glucose was decreased from their diet. They then asked whether the increase in lifespan was due to cells decreasing their ability to produce energy or to the decrease in signal to the cells by the glucose sensor ... cells unable to consume glucose as energy source are still sensitive to the pro-aging effects of glucose. Conversely, obliterating the sensor that measures the levels of glucose significantly increased lifespan"
• Slowing Aging: Anti-aging Pathway Enhances Cell Stress Response - Science Daily, 2/19/09 - "The researchers discovered a new molecular relationship critical to keeping cells healthy across a long span of time: a protein called SIRT1, important for caloric restriction and lifespan and activated by resveratrol, regulates heat shock factor 1 (HSF1), keeping it active. HSF1 in turn senses the presence of damaged proteins in the cell and elevates the expression of molecular chaperones to keep a cell's proteins in a folded, functional state. Regulation of this pathway has a direct beneficial effect to cells ... decrease in SIRT1 may help explain why protein misfolding diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's and adult-onset diabetes, are diseases of aging" - See resveratrol products at Amazon.com.
• Fewer Calories, Better Memory? - WebMD, 1/26/09 - "older men and women who follow a restricted-calorie diet score better on verbal memory tests than those who do not make such diet changes"
• Eating Less May Not Extend Human Life: Caloric Restriction May Benefit Only Obese Mice - Science Daily, 1/26/09 - "For lean mice – and possibly for lean humans, the authors of a new study predict – the anti-aging strategy known as caloric restriction may be a pointless, frustrating and even dangerous exercise ... Today there are a lot of very healthy people who look like skeletons because they bought into this ... Contrary to what is widely believed, caloric restriction does not extend (the) life span of all strains of mice ... caloric restriction begun in older mice – both in DBA and leaner C57 individuals – actually shortened life span"
• Both Major Theories About Human Cellular Aging Supported By New Research - Science Daily, 12/30/08 - "old age is the final stage of a developmental program AND the result of a lifelong accumulation of unrepaired cellular and molecular damage ... When fatty acids build up, yeast cells explode from within, scattering their contents and spreading inflammation to neighboring cells ... In addition to cell death, the accumulation of fatty acids sets off chemical reactions that ultimately produce a lipid called diacylglycerol, which impairs many of the yeast's stress response-related defenses ... Low-calorie diets, which have been shown to increase lifespan and delay age-related disorders in nonhuman primates and other organisms, altered the way fats were processed in the yeast cells"
• Why Starving Cells Prolong Life - Science Daily, 10/13/08
• Differences Between People And Animals On Calorie Restriction - Science Daily, 9/24/08 - "In the majority of the animal models of longevity, extended lifespan involves pathways related to a growth factor called IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor-1), which is produced primarily in the liver. Production is stimulated by growth hormone and can be reduced by fasting or by insensitivity to growth hormone. In calorie-restricted animals, levels of circulating IGF-1 decline between 30 percent and 40 percent ... For years, we have been following a cohort of people from the CR Society who have been on long-term calorie restriction. We found no difference in IGF-1 levels between people on calorie restriction and those who are not ... The CR Society members, who call themselves CRONies (Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition), had been on a calorie-restriction diet for an average of seven years when Fontana did the measurements, but their IGF-1 levels were virtually identical to sedentary people who ate a standard, Western diet ... there are two major influences on IGF-1 levels: calorie intake and protein intake ... His team has been following a population of strict vegans for several years. They tend to eat less protein than the CRONies from the CR Society, so he compared IGF-1 levels between the two groups ... The vegans had significantly less circulating IGF-1 ... The strict vegans took in about 10 percent of their total calories from protein, whereas those on calorie restriction tended to get about 23 or 24 percent of calories from protein ... If our research is on the right track, maybe humans don't need to be so calorie restricted. Limiting protein intake to .7 or .8 grams per kilogram per day might be more effective"
• Cutting Calories Could Limit Muscle Wasting In Later Years - Science Daily, 9/16/08 - "The researchers found increasing amounts of iron in the muscle cells of aging rats fed a typical unrestricted diet. The older the rats got, the more iron accumulated in the mitochondria and the more damage was done to its RNA and DNA. Rats of the same ages that were kept on a calorie-restricted diet — about 60 percent of the food typically ingested — seemed to maintain more normal iron levels in mitochondria"
• Looking For The Fountain Of Youth? Cut Your Calories, Research Suggests - Science Daily, 7/3/08 - "While scientists do not know how calorie restriction affects the aging process in rodents, one popular hypothesis is that it slows aging by decreasing a thyroid hormone, triiodothyronine (T3), which then slows metabolism and tissue aging" - All the studies I've read seem to support the opposite:
  • Longer-lived Rodents Have Lower Levels Of Thyroid Hormone - Science Daily, 10/12/06 - "T4 levels varied significantly between all of the groups, with the shorter-lived groups having higher levels of T4 than longer-lived groups ... However, because T3, levels did not differ significantly among all the groups, further research in this area using larger sample sizes (numbers of rodents in each group) is needed"
    
  • ACUTE EFFECTS OF TRIIODOTHYRONINE REPLACEMENT THERAPY IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC HEART FAILURE AND LOW-T3 SYNDROME: A RANDOMIZED, PLACEBO-CONTROLLED STUDY - J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jan 2 - "Low-triiodothyronine (T3) syndrome is a predictor of poor outcome in patients with cardiac dysfunction ... dilated cardiomyopathy (DC) ... In DC patients, short-term synthetic L-T3 replacement therapy significantly improved neuroendocrine profile and ventricular performance"
  • Low triiodothyronine: a strong predictor of outcome in acute stroke patients - Eur J Clin Invest. 2007 Aug;37(8):651-7 - "The 1-year mortality was 27.34% for low T3 and 19.37% for normal T3 cases (P = 0.006). A smaller percentage of patients with low T3 values were independent at 1 year compared to those with normal T3 values [54.2% vs. 68.7%, chi(2) = 12.09, P < 0.001, odds ratio (OR) = 0.53"
  • Natural killer activity and thyroid hormone levels in young and elderly persons - Gerontology 2001 Sep-Oct;47(5):282-8 - "Decreased serum concentrations of total T(3) may contribute to low NK activity in the 'almost healthy' subgroup of the elderly"
  • Does low tri-iodothyronine independently predict mortality in elderly hospitalised patients? -  Int J Clin Pract 2001 Jul-Aug;55(6):409-10 - "Our study shows an association of low serum T3 with patient mortality in elderly hospitalised patients"
• Substance In Red Wine, Resveratrol, Found To Keep Hearts Young - Science Daily, 6/4/08 - "Resveratrol is active in much lower doses than previously thought and mimics a significant fraction of the profile of caloric restriction at the gene expression level ... In animals on a restricted diet, 90 percent of those heart genes experienced altered gene expression profiles, while low doses of resveratrol thwarted age-related change in 92 percent. The new findings, say the study's authors, were associated with prevention of the decline in heart function associated with aging" - See resveratrol at Amazon.com.
• Low-dose resveratrol may slow ageing: for mice at least - Nutra USA, 6/4/08 - "animals in the calorie-restriction and low-dose resveratrol groups had altered gene expression profiles in 90 and 92 per cent, respectively, in the heart ... In short, a glass of wine or food or supplements that contain even small doses of resveratrol are likely to represent "a robust intervention in the retardation of cardiac ageing,"" - See resveratrol at Amazon.com.
• Red wine may protect heart from aging’s toll - MSNBC. 6/3/08 - "Resveratrol at low doses can retard some aspects of the aging process, including heart aging, and it may do so by mimicking some of the effects of caloric restriction, which is known to retard aging in several tissues and extend life span" - See resveratrol products at iHerb.
• When It Comes To Living Longer, It's Better To Go Hungry Than Go Running, Mouse Study Suggests - Science Daily, 5/14/08 - "at least two studies which examined people who engage in high-volume exercise versus people who restricted their calorie intake, had a similar outcome: caloric restriction has physiological benefits that exercise alone does not ... One theory is that exercise places stress on the body, which can result in damage to the tissues and DNA. Another theory is that caloric restriction leads to physiological changes which benefit the body" - I still think it boils down to the ravages of higher insulin and blood sugar which increase advanced glycation end products a major cause of aging.
• How Dietary Restriction Slows Down Aging - Science Daily, 4/17/08
• Severely restricting calories could lead to longer life - Nutra USA, 10/30/07
• Severely Restricted Diet Linked To Physical Fitness Into Old Age - Science Daily, 10/25/07
• Eat Less To Live Longer: Calorie Restriction Linked To Long Healthy Lives - Science Daily, 9/20/07
• Dietary Restriction Cleans Cells - Science Daily, 8/23/07
• Eat Less, Live Longer? Gene Links Calorie Restriction To Longevity - Science Daily, 5/2/07
• Dogs Lived 1.8 Years Longer On Low Calorie Diet: Gut Flora May Explain It - Science Daily, 4/19/07
• How Eating Less Might Make You Live Longer - Science Daily, 3/5/07 - "even short-term caloric restriction can produce beneficial physiological changes leading to improved health. Whether caloric restriction and the associated health benefits can be sustained over longer term remains to be established in humans"
• Body Composition May Be Key Player In Controlling Cancer Risks - Science Daily, 1/3/07 - "This study suggests that body composition, being lean as opposed to being obese, has a greater protective effect against cancer"
• Weight Loss From Calorie Restriction Decreases BMD in Older Adults - Medscape, 12/13/06 - "weight loss from calorie restriction produced significant decreases in bone-mineral density (BMD) in older adults"
• One for the Ages: A Prescription That May Extend Life - New York Times, 10/31/06 - "One leading candidate, a newly synthesized form of resveratrol — an antioxidant present in large amounts in red wine — is already being tested in patients. It may eventually be the first of a new class of anti-aging drugs. Extrapolating from recent animal findings, Dr. Richard A. Miller, a pathologist at the University of Michigan, estimated that a pill mimicking the effects of calorie restriction might increase human life span to about 112 healthy years ... Some researchers have even described Type 2 diabetes, which is marked by insensitivity to the hormone insulin, as simply an accelerated form of aging"
• Calorie Restriction without Hunger! - Life Extension Magazine, 7/06 - "excess insulin functions as a death hormone that devastates virtually every cell and organ system in the body"
• Calorie Restriction May Prevent Alzheimer's Through Promotion Of Longevity Program In The Brain - Science Daily, 6/14/06 - "a high caloric intake based on saturated fat promotes AD type beta-amyloidosis, while caloric restriction based on reduced carbohydrate intake is able to prevent it"
• Metabolic Benefits of Calorie Restriction - Medscape, 6/12/06 - "A total of 48 overweight but otherwise healthy adults (body-mass index, 25-30 kg/m2; mean age, 38) were assigned to one of four groups: weight maintenance, 25% calorie restriction, 12.5% calorie restriction plus exercise, or very low calorie intake (890 calories daily until weight was reduced by 15%) ... At 6 months, all three intervention groups showed significant weight loss (10%-14% of baseline weight), as well as significant reductions in fasting insulin levels and DNA damage"
• Calorie Restriction Appears Better Than Exercise At Slowing Primary Aging - Science Daily, 5/31/06 - "Sedentary rats who ate a standard diet had the shortest average life-spans," Holloszy says. "Those who exercised by running on a wheel lived longer, but animals on calorie restriction lived even longer"
• Trim Calories for Healthier Aging? - WebMD, 5/10/06
• Cutting Calories Slightly Can Reduce Aging Damage - Science Daily, 5/8/06 - "feeding rats just 8 percent fewer calories a day and moderately increasing the animals' activity extended their average lifespan and significantly overturned the negative effects of cellular aging on liver function and overall health ... the study results support the theory that cell death and aging-related organ damage are caused by unstable molecules known as free radicals and by cellular oxidation and inflammation"
• Big Study Looks at Longevity-Low Calorie Link - Intelihealth, 4/26/06
• Thinner And Younger - Science Daily, 4/5/06
• Calorie Restriction May Improve Biomarkers of Longevity - Medscape, 4/4/06
• Cut Calories, Boost Longevity? - WebMD, 4/4/06 - "By the study's end, fasting insulin and DNA damage had dropped for all participants whose calories had been limited, but not for the comparison group"
• Starve Yourself to Live Longer? - ABC  News, 4/4/06 - "the decreased body temperature and insulin levels are particularly important in this study because they are good indicators of increased longevity and are often referred to as the biomarkers of longevity"
• Low-Cal Diet May Slow Heart's Aging - WebMD, 1/17/06
• Caloric Restriction Appears to Prevent Primary Aging in the Heart - Doctor's Guide, 1/12/06 - "This decline in diastolic function is a marker of primary aging ... Diastolic function declines in most people as they get older, but in this study we found that diastolic function in calorie-restricted people resembled diastolic function in individuals about 15 years younger ... Our hypothesis is that low-grade, chronic inflammation is mediating primary aging"
• Researchers Find Pathways Linking Caloric Restriction To Aging Process - Science Daily, 11/18/05
• Bare-minimum diet: Is long life the payoff? - USA Today, 10/23/05 - "very low-calorie diet seems to shield these animals from type 2 diabetes, a common disease of old age ... The average blood pressure for people on the diet was 100/60 — about what is expected for an average 10-year-old ... mice on the diet, which provides food at near-starvation levels, appear cranky. "If you take the lid off the cage, they immediately bite you,""
• How Cutting Calories May Increase Longevity - WebMD, 10/13/05 - "mice that were fed 30% to 40% fewer calories produced more nitric oxide than those who followed an unrestricted diet"
• Extremely Low-Calorie Diet Won't Extend Life - WebMD, 8/30/05
• Caloric Restriction Won't Dramatically Extend Life Span In Humans: UCLA Research - Science Daily, 8/30/05
• Eat less for a healthier life - MSNBC, 5/6/05 - "Laboratory studies show that calorie restriction can lead to fewer and smaller breast cancers. It also appears to inhibit all cancers by slowing down the development of cancer cells, increasing their self-destruction and reducing DNA damage"
• Do Carbs, Calories Affect Alzheimer's Risk? - WebMD, 1/13/05 - "mice eating fewer calories and carbohydrates than those allowed to eat all they wanted showed no signs of Alzheimer's-like disease, even though they had been bred to have the condition"
• Riverside Professor Receives First Age-Reversal Prize - Science Daily, 1/7/05 - "According to Spindler's research, the fewer calories an animal consumes - provided malnutrition is avoided - the slower an animal ages and the lower the death rate from cancer, heart disease and diabetes"
• Caloric Restriction and Life Expectancy - Medscape, 12/22/04
• Cutting Calories May Cut Parkinson's Risk - Doctor's Guide, 13/13/04
• Save Up Your Energy Reserves For A Longer Life! - Science Daily, 12/10/04
• Calorie Restriction Lowers Heart Risk - WebMD, 4/19/04
• Calorie Restriction Prolongs Life, Even Late - WebMD, 3/23/04
• Study: Low-Calorie Diet Extends Life - Intelihealth, 3/23/04
• Restricting calories may increase life span - MSNBC, 3/22/04 - "a strict, low-calorie diet increased the life span of aged mice by more than 40 percent ... the new research shows that even 19-month-old mice, about the human equivalent of 60 to 65 years, can have a longer life when eating fewer calories"
• Restrict Calories, Live Longer? - WebMD, 12/31/03
• Eat Less to Live Longer? - Dr. Weil, 12/29/03
• Fasting Benefits Glucose Metabolism, Nerve Cells - Physician's Weekly, 7/28/03 - "skipping meals frequently can help mice maintain healthier glucose and insulin levels ... when mice were given a neurotoxin mimicking the effects of Alzheimer's in humans, the subjects on the intermittent fasting diet were more resistant to nerve damage or death than mice with unlimited or reduced calorie diets ... mice on the fasting regimen were more likely to produce the protein BDNF, which protects the growth and health of nerve cells"
• BioMarker Pharmaceuticals Develops Anti-Aging Therapy - Life Extension Magazine, 6/03 - "The BioMarker scientists found that all the glucoregulatory agents reproduced some of the gene expression effects of CR [calorie restriction], but that metformin was the undisputed star of the group, being twice as effective as the others in reproducing the effects of CR"
• Skipping Meals Keeps Rodents Healthy - WebMD, 4/28/03
• Survival to 90 Years Linked to Low Weight in Young Adulthood and Exercise - Doctor's Guide, 4/8/03 - "baseline height and weight were not associated with mortality. However, a higher weight at age 21 was associated with increased odds of dying before reaching 90 years (OR=1.04 per 5 lb increase, P 0.0001). Those who exercised were 24-31% less likely to die by the age of 90 (OR=0.76, P 0.0001 for less than 1 hour per day, OR=0.69, P 0.0001 for 1 hour or more per day). Similarly, being in the mid tertile of BMI at baseline (22-24 for men, 20-23 for women) was associated with decreased odds of dying before age 90 (OR=0.70, P 0.0001)"

Abstracts:

• The impact of food restriction on liver enzyme levels: a systematic review and meta-analysis - Nutr Rev 2023 Mar 1 - "Existing evidence suggests that dietary restriction improves adult liver enzyme levels"
• Caloric restriction delays age-related muscle atrophy by inhibiting 11β-HSD1 to promote the differentiation of muscle stem cells - Front Med (Lausanne) 2023 Jan 5 - "Calorie restriction (CR) is an important direction for the delay of sarcopenia in elderly individuals. However, the specific mechanisms of CR against aging are still unclear ... Together, our findings highlight promising sarcopenia protection with 40% CR in older ages. Furthermore, we speculated that targeting an 11β-HSD1-dependent metabolic pathway may represent a novel strategy for developing therapeutics against age-related muscle atrophy"
• Effect of an Intermittent Calorie-restricted Diet on Type 2 Diabetes Remission: A Randomized Controlled Trial - J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2022 Dec 14 - "Participants between ages 38 and 72 years with a duration of T2D of 1 to 11 years, a body mass index (BMI) of 19.1 to 30.4, 66.7% male, and antidiabetic agent use and/or insulin injection were randomly allocated at a ratio of 1:1 to the Chinese Medical Nutrition Therapy (CMNT) or control group. The primary outcome was diabetes remission, defined as a stable glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level of less than 48 mmol/mol (< 6.5%) for at least 3 months after discontinuing all antidiabetic medications ... On completing the 3-month intervention plus 3-month follow-up, 47.2% (17/36) of participants achieved diabetes remission in the CMNT group, whereas only 2.8% (1/36) of individuals achieved remission in the control group (odds ratio 31.32; 95% CI, 2.39-121.07; P < 0.0001). The mean body weight of participants in the CMNT group was reduced by 5.93 kg (SD 2.47) compared to 0.27 kg (1.43) in the control group. After the 12-month follow-up, 44.4% (16/36) of the participants achieved sustained remission, with an HbA1c level of 6.33% (SD 0.87). The medication costs of the CMNT group were 77.22% lower than those of the control group (60.4/month vs 265.1/month)"
• Intermittent Fasting-Short- and Long-Term Quality of Life, Fatigue, and Safety in Healthy Volunteers: A Prospective, Clinical Trial - Nutrients 2022 Oct 10 - "Intermittent fasting (IF) is defined as an eating pattern without calorie restrictions, alternating between periods of fasting and eating. In the past decades IF has not only become a popular weight-reducing diet but is thought to improve Quality of Life (QoL) and fatigue ... IF according to the 16:8 regime over a fasting period of three months significantly improved several aspects of the QoL and decreased fatigue in healthy people, while maintaining a good safety profile. The practicability of this diet was also demonstrated for shift workers and people with a high percentage of active labour. Apart from the improvement in QoL and fatigue, the significant reduction in IGF-1, which can act as an accelerator of tumour development and progression, might be an indicator of the potential benefits of IF for patients with cancer"
• Long-term caloric restriction ameliorates T cell immunosenescence in mice - Mech Ageing Dev. 2022 Jul 19 - "Aging is associated with a decrease in the function of the immune system, a phenomenon known as immunosenescence, which results in reduced resistance to infection. Caloric restriction (CR) is known to prolong lifespan and to regulate immune function ... Compared with a normal diet or short-term CR, long-term CR induced marked or complete attenuation of age-related decreases in the frequency of spleen NK cells and NKT cells; naïve CD4+ and CD8+ T cells; and cytokine- and granzyme B-secreting T cells. In contrast, both long- and short-term CR significantly suppressed age-related upregulation of the T cell exhaustion markers PD-1, Tim-3, and KLRG1, as well as the transcription factors NR4A1 and TOX, which regulate the expression of genes associated with the T cell exhaustion phenotype. These results suggest that CR might suppress age-associated immunosenescence by regulating the expression of transcription factors and target genes that control T cell exhaustion"
• Intermittent Fasting is Associated with a Decreased Risk of Age-related Macular Degeneration: Intermittent fasting and age-related macular degeneration - Am J Ophthalmol 2022 Jul 6 - "The intermittent fasting group had a decreased risk of AMD compared to the non-fasting group (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.413... Using the population-based survey data, we demonstrated that intermittent fasting by skipping breakfast was significantly associated with a reduced risk of AMD in a representative elderly population, especially in individuals with age less than 70 years, obesity, and urban residence"
• Implementation of Christian Orthodox fasting improves plasma adiponectin concentrations compared with time-restricted eating in overweight premenopausal women - Int J Food Sci Nutr 2021 Jun 21 - "In the OF group, there was an increase in adiponectin values at 12 weeks compared with baseline (9815.99 vs 8983.52 mg/ml, p = 0.02) and a reduction in body fat mass between baseline and 12 weeks (35.44 vs 32.17%, p = 0.004) and between 7 and 12 weeks (35.33 vs 32.17%, p = 0.003). In the same group, an inverse correlation between adiponectin and waist circumference values was observed over the entire study period. Our results provide novel evidence that Orthodox fasting has favourable metabolic effects related to improved adiponectin concentrations."
• Intermittent Fasting with a High Protein Diet Mitigated Osteoarthritis Symptoms by Increasing Lean Body Mass and Reducing Inflammation in Osteoarthritic rats with Alzheimer's Disease-Like Dementia - Br J Nutr 2021 Mar 10 - "Alzheimer's-like disease (AD) ... intermittent fasting(IMF) ... high-protein(H-P) ... high-fat(H-F) or H-P diets for two weeks ... AD exacerbated the articular cartilage deterioration and memory impairment, and IMF with H-P alleviated the memory impairment and osteoarthritic symptoms by decreasing hippocampal amyloid-β deposition and proinflammatory cytokine expressions and by increasing LBM"
• Time-restricted eating effects on performance, immune function, and body composition in elite cyclists: a randomized controlled trial - J Int Soc Sports Nutr 2020 Dec 11 - "time-restricted eating (TRE) ... Sixteen elite under-23 cyclists were randomly assigned either to a TRE group or a control group (ND). The TRE group consumed 100% of its estimated daily energy needs in an 8-h time window (from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) whilst energy intake in the ND group was distributed in 3 meals consumed between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. ... peak power output/body weight ratio (PPO/BW) ...Our results suggest that a TRE program with an 8-h feeding window elicits weight loss, improves body composition and increases PPO/BW in elite cyclists. TRE could also be beneficial for reducing inflammation and may have a protective effect on some components of the immune system. Overall, TRE could be considered as a component of a periodized nutrition plan in endurance athletes" - [Nutra USA]
• Alternate-day fasting, obesity, and metabolic syndrome - Metabolism 2020 Aug 7 - "Alternate-day fasting (ADF) is related to weight reduction, lowered risks of weight regain, and relative lean body mass preservation compared to continuous energy restriction ... We observed significant effects of ADF for BMI (WMD -0.73 kg/m2, 95% CI -1.13 to -0.34), FM (WMD -1.27 kg, 95% CI -2.09 to -0.46), and total cholesterol (WMD -8.14 mg/dL, 95% CI -14.59 to -1.69). Subgroup analyses indicated that significant intervention effects were observed for BMI, BW, FM, and total cholesterol when compared to the control, the participants were overweight, and the study duration was <6 months. ADF is effective in reducing waist circumference in adults aged ≥40 years with obesity. However, there was no difference between ADF and continuous energy restriction, time-restricted feeding, or control with regard to lean body mass"
• n-3 Fatty acids preserve muscle mass and insulin sensitivity in a rat model of energy restriction - Br J Nutr. 2016 Sep 13:1-12 - "dietary n-3 PUFA prevent the loss of muscle mass associated with energy restriction, probably by an improvement in the insulin-signalling pathway activation, in relation to enrichment of plasma membranes in n-3 LC-PUFA" - See fish oil supplements at Amazon.com.
• The Influence of Dietary Fat Source on Life Span in Calorie Restricted Mice - J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2014 Oct 13 - "C57BL/6J mice were assigned to four groups (a 5% CR control group and three 40% CR groups) and fed diets with soybean oil (high in n-6 PUFAs), fish oil (high in n-3 PUFAs), or lard (high in saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids) as the primary lipid source. Life span was increased (p < .05) in all CR groups compared to the Control mice. Life span was also increased (p < .05) in the CR lard mice compared to animals consuming either the CR fish or soybean oil diets"
• Efficacy of Fasting and Calorie Restriction (FCR) on Mood and Depression among Ageing Men - J Nutr Health Aging. 2013;17(8):674-680 - "FCR (Fasting and Calorie Restriction) ... A total of 31 subjects completed the study (n=16, FCR and n=15, control) ... Our findings show that a FCR dietary regime is effective in improving mood states and nutritional status among ageing men"
• Life-long caloric restriction elicits pronounced protection of the aged myocardium: a role for AMPK - Mech Ageing Dev. 2010 Oct 7
• Calorie restriction: what recent results suggest for the future of ageing research - Eur J Clin Invest. 2010 May;40(5):440-50 - "the search for substances that can reproduce the beneficial physiologic responses of CR without a requisite calorie intake reduction, termed CR mimetics (CRMs), has gained momentum. Material and methods Recent articles describing health and lifespan results of CR in nonhuman primates and short-term human studies are discussed. Additional consideration is given to the rapidly expanding search for CRMs. Results The first results from a long-term, randomized, controlled CR study in nonhuman primates showing statistically significant benefits on longevity have now been reported. Additionally, positive results from short-term, randomized, controlled CR studies in humans are suggestive of potential health and longevity gains, while test of proposed CRMs (including rapamycin, resveratrol, 2-deoxyglucose and metformin) have shown both positive and mixed results in rodents"
• Caloric restriction leads to high marrow adiposity and low bone mass in growing mice - J Bone Miner Res. 2010 Mar 12
• Resveratrol Modulates Tumor Cell Proliferation and Protein Translation via SIRT1-Dependent AMPK Activation - J Agric Food Chem. 2009 Nov 20 - "Similar to those effects associated with caloric restriction (CR), resveratrol has multiple beneficial activities, such as increased life span and delay in the onset of diseases associated with aging ... Here, we show that resveratrol activated AMPK in both ER-positive and ER-negative breast cancer cells ... Here, we show that resveratrol activated AMPK in both ER-positive and ER-negative breast cancer cells. Once activated, AMPK inhibited 4E-BP1 signaling and mRNA translation via mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR). Moreover, we also found that AMPK activity mediated by resveratrol in cancer cells was due to inducing the expression of Sirtuin type 1 (SIRT1) via elevation in the cellular NAD(+)/NADH in ER-positive cells. To our knowledge, we demonstrate here for the first time that resveratrol induces the expression of SIRT1 protein in human cancer cells. These observations raise the possibility that SIRT1 functions as a novel upstream regulator for AMPK signaling and may additionally modulate tumor cell proliferation. Targeting SIRT1/AMPK signaling by resveratrol may have potential therapeutic implications for cancer and age-related diseases" - See resveratrol products at Amazon.com.
• Antiaging, longevity and calorie restriction - Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2009 Oct 21 - "Major negative effects in humans were loss of muscle mass, muscle strength and loss of bone ... Dietary restriction in rodents has not been shown to be effective when started in older rodents. Weight loss in humans over 60 years of age is associated with increased mortality, hip fracture and increased institutionalization. Calorie restriction in older persons should be considered experimental and potentially dangerous. Exercise at present appears to be a preferable treatment for older persons"
• Omega-3 as well as caloric restriction prevent the age-related modifications of cholesterol metabolism - Mech Ageing Dev. 2008 Sep 26 - "both caloric restriction and Omega-3 supplemented diets are able to prevent hypercholesterolemia, by regulating HMG-CoAR activation state by controlling ROS production and p38 phosphorylation. Moreover also the age-dependent loss of LDLr membrane exposition is prevented" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Dietary lipoic acid supplementation can mimic or block the effect of dietary restriction on life span -Mech Ageing Dev. 2008 Apr 22;129(6):341-348 - "Ad libitum feeding a diet supplemented with lipoic acid can therefore act as mimetic of DR to extend survival" - See alpha lipoic acid at Amazon.com.
• Effect of 6-month calorie restriction on biomarkers of longevity, metabolic adaptation, and oxidative stress in overweight individuals: a randomized controlled trial - JAMA. 2006 Apr 5;295(13):1539-48 - "At 6 months, fasting insulin levels were significantly reduced from baseline in the intervention groups"