Bare Bones Diet Gains Followers-Calorie Restricted Monkey (1,500 per day) Lives to Age 114

Wall Street Journal and MSNBC ^ | Jume 3, 2002 | Laura Johannes

[codebreaker]

Link

Gave the monkey 1500 calories a day less and he sustained much longer age than the other subjects, than the other sujects in the lab.

The scientifc survey is said to be applicable to humans.

[null and void]

If you call that living...

[codebreaker]

Well, the Japanese have triple the people 100 plus years old that we do and they follow some semblance of the diet.

[null and void]

Yes, but the Japanese revere their elders, ours are just in the way. Who wants to stick around when they are neither needed or wanted?...

[apochromat]

Less for the monkey to throw, though.

[Redcloak]

Encouraged by the animal research, the NIH plans to spend $20 million to test the effects of calorie restriction on hundreds of Americans. Some people have seen enough evidence already and have started self-depriving. Bob Cavanaugh, a 54-year-old landscaper from Morehead, N.C., has trimmed his intake to two meals a day, totaling 1,500 calories. Breakfast consists of one cup of quick oats, two tablespoons of toasted wheat germ, one cup of skim milk and blueberries. For dinner, he eats vegetables, fruit and a small portion of fish. “I’m hoping to see my great, great grandchildren,” he says.

...when he'll be known as "that weird old geezer who eats jelly beans with a knife and fork."

BTW: I'm just about done with this bag of microwave popcorn. At ~480 calories, It contains about 1/3 of this guy's daily caloric intake.

[DallasMike]

The secret is that all of your 1,500 calories per day have to be from Purina Monkey Chow.

[Brett66]

I don't stand a chance! Pizza buffet, here I come!

[Ann Archy]

It just SEEMS like 114.

[Zebra]

I saw that piece in the Wall Street Journal. One big side effect of the so-called starvation diet in loss of sexual desire. That accounts for why the 38 year old (114 in human years) monkey is so depressed.

[lsee]

Yeah, but how would the monkey rate on intelligence tests? Physical endurance tests? Agility? When the body is in "survival mode" this means ALL the other systems take a back seat. What's the point of living longer if you're also slower to think, weaker, and more clumsy? Certainly there is proven value in restricting "empty" calories like simple carbohydrates and excess fats, but this kind of subsistence living puts long life over live-able life...

[general_re]

Actually, this isn't really new - it's long been suspected that restricting your caloric intake to about 2/3 of what is considered "normal" will increase lifespan. OTOH, what's the point of living to 100+ if you have to spend all 100+ years eating roots and bark?

[eraser X]

Ha!

[codebreaker]

That guy better start taking Viagra if he is following the diet

[winin2000]

If you call that living.

Amen, brother. Give me my current relatively high-cal, low-fat diet and a shitload of cardiovascular and muscular exercise over this quackery any day of the week!

I look forward to dying at a robustly active 85 or 90, having enjoyed outstanding health, mobility, and (God-willing) potency, compared to these twits who'll look like a vegetating sack of bones at 120.

Life is to be enjoyed, not just lived!

[PushinTin]

One question...Did these monkeys exercise at all or were they couch potatoes like most overweight people?

[codebreaker]

Lets hope Bill and Hillary don't find out about this.

[SamAdams76]

The world is full of people with hearty appetites living well into their 80s and 90s. If I had a choice of living to be 80 eating what I am eating now or switching to rabbit food in order to gain another 20 or 30 years of life, I would say pass the prime rib and refill my beer glass, please.