Eat less, live longer? As absurd as this sounds, it’s the claim now being made by Australian researchers, whose work was recently published in the journal BioEssays.
Researchers didn’t come to the conclusion by conducting a study, however–it’s a theory they developed after observing how calorie restriction affected laboratory mice.
“This effect has been demonstrated in laboratories around the world, in species ranging from yeast to flies to mice,” says Dr. Margo Adler, an evolutionary biologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “There is also some evidence that it occurs in primates. But we think that lifespan extension from dietary restriction is more likely to be a laboratory artefact.”
According to her findings, which were published earlier this week, she believes that animals typically don’t survive calorie restriction in the wild because it hampers their immune system and muscles, making it harder to fight off disease and predators. As a result, many die in the wild, making it a less than useful evolutionary trait.
However, in laboratory settings, none of these issues come into play.
“Unlike in the benign conditions of the lab, most animals in the wild are killed young by parasites or predators,” says Adler. “Since dietary restriction appears to extend lifespan in the lab by reducing old-age diseases, it is unlikely to have the same effect on wild animals, which generally don’t live long enough to be affected by cancer and other late-life pathologies.”
When isolated in a laboratory setting, something interesting happens to mice eating fewer calories, says Adler–for instance, their rate of cellular recycling increases, something she says developed to help animals reproduce when there isn’t enough food to eat. In turn, this effect also allows nutrients inside the body to be reused over and over, a sort of natural recycling mechanism that enables them to survive longer.
This, she believes, allows mice to survive for longer in laboratory settings, as the rate of nutrient “recycling” also seems to have a protective effect against age-related deterioration.
“This is the most intriguing aspect, from a human health stand point,” says Adler. “Although extended lifespan may simply be a side effect of dietary restriction, a better understanding of these cellular recycling mechanisms that drive the effect may hold the promise of longer, healthier lives for humans.”
On the contrary, however, her findings are largely theoretical, as these findings have never been carried out successfully in human participants. But if you want to try out this experiment first hand, all you need to do is diet– some suggest that restricting your calories by just 500 a day may be all that is necessary to reap these benefits.
Going overboard with it won’t help, however; in the infamous Minnesota Starvation Experiment, men who starved themselves develop serious side effects similar to anorexia nervosa.
Readers: Would you eat fewer calories to live longer? Why or why not?
Sources:
Very Low Nutrient Diet May Offer Anti-Aging Clues – FoodNavigator.com
Study: Low Nutrient Diet May Help You Live Longer, Say Researchers – ScienceDaily.com
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