MemeMachineGo!

The calorie restriction diet:

As scientists begin to uncover the secrets of longevity, they are finding a prescription for long life that few will want to take: a diet so low in calories that to most Americans, it would feel close to starvation.

The diet, dubbed “calorie restriction” in the clinical parlance of science, would be called severe deprivation in any other lexicon. Calorie restriction was first shown to create exceptionally long-lived rats in the 1930s. It later had the same effect in guppies, water fleas, yeast, spiders and a microscopic water invertebrate called the rotifer. Last month, Labrador retrievers became the first large mammals to join the list.

Now, scientists appear on the verge of a finding that calorie restriction also extends the lifespan of monkeys, who share more than 90% of their genes with humans. At the National Institutes of Health, where researchers have been studying a colony of 120 rhesus monkeys for 15 years, evidence for calorie restriction is mounting. The control animals, fed a healthy lowfat diet, are dying at a normal rate, while animals fed 30% less appear to be living far longer — and avoiding age-linked maladies. One of the underfed monkeys is 38 years old, the human equivalent of 114 years.

An effect of eating less is that your metabolism slows down, so this makes perfect sense. And in case anyone in the studio audience is thinking of trying this at home, I'd like to stress that yoyo-ing between "calorie restriction" and bingeing would be a terrible thing for your health and thus unlikely to extend your life.

(Via moxie.nu)