Eat Less, Live Longer? Works for Monkeys

Research Shows Cutting Calories Slowed Aging, Fended off Death in Rhesus Monkeys

(AP)  Calorie-counting may have some intriguing benefits for monkeys: A 20-year study found cutting calories by almost a third slowed their aging and fended off death.

This is not about a quick diet to shed a few pounds. Scientists have long known they could increase the lifespan of mice and more primitive creatures - worms, flies - with deep, long-term cuts in what should be normal consumption.

Now comes the first evidence that it delays the diseases of aging in primates, too - rhesus monkeys living at the Wisconsin National Primate Center. Researchers reported their study Friday in the journal Science.

What about those other primates, humans? Nobody knows yet if people in a world better known for pigging out could stand the deprivation long enough to make a difference, much less how it would affect our more complex bodies. Still, small attempts to tell are under way.

"What we would really like is not so much that people should live longer but that people should live healthier," said Dr. David Finkelstein of the National Institute on Aging. The Wisconsin monkeys seemed to do both.

"The fact that there's less disease in these animals is striking," Finkelstein said.

The tantalizing possibilities of caloric restriction date back to rodent studies in the 1930s. But it's a hot topic today among researchers trying to understand the different processes that make our bodies break down with age, so maybe some of them could be delayed or reversed.

Captive rhesus monkeys have an average lifespan of 27 years, so spotting an effect takes a lot longer than in short-lived mice. The newest study involves 76 monkeys - 30 tracked since 1989 and 46 since 1994. They were normal-sized adults eating a normal diet for a captive monkey, a special vitamin-enriched chow plus some fruit treats.

Then researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, assigned half the monkeys to the reduced-calorie diet, cutting their daily calories by 30 percent but ensuring what they did eat was properly nourishing.

So far, 37 percent of the monkeys who kept their regular diet have died of age-related diseases - compared with just 13 percent of the calorie-cut monkeys, a nearly three-fold difference, the researchers reported. A handful of other monkeys died of unrelated conditions, such as injury, not deemed affected by nutrition.

Death wasn't the only change. The calorie-cut monkeys had less than half the incidence of cancerous tumors or heart disease as the monkeys who ate normally. Brain scans showed less age-related shrinkage in the dieting monkeys. They also retained more muscle, something else that tends to waste with age.

Compare two cage-by-cage photos of the monkeys and the difference is obvious: A 29-year-old monkey happens to be the oldest non-dieting monkey still alive, and a 27-year-old the oldest still-living dieter. Yet the dieting monkey looks many more years younger than his fatter, frumpier neighbor, not just a mere two.

"All these pieces put together provide rather convincing evidence in our view that caloric restriction can slow the aging process in a primate species," said lead researcher Dr. Richard Weindruch, a University of Wisconsin professor heading the NIA-funded study.

He contends that somehow the diet change is reprogramming metabolism in a way that slows aging.

The federal government is funding a small study to see if some healthy normal-weight people could sustain a 25 percent calorie cut for two years and if doing so signals some changes that might, over a long enough time, reduce some age-related disease.

But NIA's Finkelstein cautions that people shouldn't just try this on their own; cutting out the wrong nutrients could cause more harm than good. Just follow commonsense healthy lifestyle advice, he said.

"Everyone's obviously looking for the magic pill," and there's not one, Finkelstein said. "Watch what you eat, keep your mind active, exercise and don't get run over by a car."

[Kris1960]

The good part about this is that the topic attracts attention to healthier living. Science books and studies bring it to light. Now we need to seek out role models - not just people in simple villages that are not subject to the challenges of modern living (stresses, food temptation/processed food, modern conveniences/less exercise). A new book release on a modern American centenarian that doesn't look a day over 75 and is active, healthy without huge sacrifices is called "Elsa's Own Blue Zone." See the website of same and be "wow"ed by this woman (videos there, too). Learn her secrets in the book. Entertaining, useful information.

[bwlewis1964]

politicians live forever.

[voxpopulus]

Maybe fat people will stop pretending anorexia is a bigger threat now. It isn't.

[hankvreeland]

I guess that is why the sub Saharan peoples live to the ripe old age of 34.

[rf35]

Old news. I saw a piece several years ago on a man who had learned of the benefits of a micro-calorie diet from some monks in China or somewhere. He had been eating nothing but a small bowl of various leaves and such each day for about the last 35 years. I think his caloric intake was in the neighborhood of 500 per day. He was in his 60s and looked about mid-40s. He claimed he hadn't been sick in over 30 years. He lived alone in a mountain cabin, grew most of his food, and went into the nearest town about once a week for supplies. My take on the whole thing is this: I don't really care if I kick off in my 60s as long as enjoy life. What's the point of living longer if your life is miserable?

[whitemale08]

Another bailout commercial, packaged as 'health news' so Americans will accept and love their serfdom while the 'difference' of less consumption is monetized and thrown into a worthless derivative and credit-default swap for BIG FAILED BANKS to trade and make money off it.

It's a scam folks,

You have to train your brain to spot these 'puff pieces' used to sell us the idea of 'sacrificing' for the sake of BIG FAILED ZOMBIE BANKS like Goldman Sucks and JP Morgan in this new worthless carbon-swaps krap markets their setting up.

[John_Merritt]

Dude, lighten up. Everyone needs to get physically healthy, because for MANY that might be the only sure way of keeping their emotional stability in these tough times. Danged be the banks and everyone else that laid the huge whammy to us. Now we need to look out for ourselves because no one else is. Have a good day.

[John_Merritt]

I know they have done studies on vegetarians, and their lifespan is 5-6 years longer. I would think they have less heart disease and many types of cancers, diabetes and stroke related problems, high blood pressure, etc.

Just think we could live longer with less to be able to sustain us because our retirement funds have been shredded and we could work longer as well. Where is the trade off?

[rafterman1]

kawoman, true.

But on the other hand, have you ever seen a fat, 300 lb 90 year old?

[kawoman]

Could it perhaps be that the reason the animals, primates and insects live longer is not due to the lack of consumption but rather WHAT they are consuming versus humans? No doubt their diets do not include MSG, other perservatives and steroids. Gee, the starving people in Africa and Appalachia live on about 1/3 the amount of food that the rest of us do and yet they aren't living longer. Hmmm, get perspective please.

[rf35]

It's actually a combination of healthier food and less of it. Ture, the animals' diets don't contain the various additives our Western culture has come to view as normal; but they are also given foods with higher nutritional value than that of most humans. White rice is not a very nutritious food, yet it is the only food some people can get. Nutrition per calorie seems to be the key here...more nutrition per calorie equals a need for fewer calories.