Starvation for long Life

I posed this on the CRS Mainlist. But will post it here too cos I don't have anything to write about today. Basically there was a paper pubhsed which has been posted in the CR Mainlist and it said that there would be extremely little to gain from middle life CR and early CR. Anything from 2 years gained life expectancy if started in middle age, to 9 years if one started in their 20's and done 30% CR... and this what I think.

Starvation for long Life
If you look at the average person by middle-late age they usually suffer from multiple ailments such as pre diabetes or full blown diabetes, overweight, heart disease, high blood pressure, and other chronic debilitating conditions which can be attributed to a lifetime of neglect. The average person has poor food choices, poor micronutrient intake and usually several deficiencies, one being omega 3 which is quite common and under-diagnosed in the west.

If you look at Seventh Day Adventist their life expectancy is much greater than that of the average American by just engaging in a healthy lifestyle and NOT being CR'd at all. As reported before their average BMI seems to be in the upper end of normal around BMI 23-25. With vegetarians being leaner and gaining slightly increased life expectancy over non vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists. So diet alone.

[1] article states "Researchers discovered that the life expectancy of a 30-year-old vegetarian Adventist woman was 85.7 years, and 83.3 years for a vegetarian Adventist man. This exceeds the life expectancies of other Californians by 6.1 years for women and 9.5 years for men. Non-vegetarian Adventist women in the group had a life expectancy of 84 years, and non-vegetarian men, 81 years"

Their reduction in heart disease in Calorie Restrictors will be more significant. Looking at the data gathered in the study at WUSTL the risk for CRONies is extremely low. This spans across all age ranges from anecdotal reports. This effects isn't unexpected as it has already been observed in many other species. Human are more prone to heart disease and is right up there as the biggest killer... and CRON virtually eliminates it, our risk is almost 0. Not to forget an improvement in heart function from 15-20 years younger than a CRers actual age [5]. Sure, you can argue that we were going against some fat middle aged ad libers, but then who the hell do you think we compare to? These people are still part of the population with an average BMI of close to 25 than still manage to survive into their late 70's despite complete ignorance and neglect of nutrition and health.

There is also NO CHANCE unless you have some extreme predisposition to it for getting type two diabetes.

With low cholesterol, combined with low blood pressure our risk of both ischemic and cerebral hemorrhage will be quite low. At least from the evidence being gathered at the moment.... Those with extremely low lipids <150mg/dl combined with high blood pressure, be careful one of your arteries don't pop as you get older. Risk is usually after the age of 60. Although your risk would still be lower than that of a person who has high cholesterol which results in an ischemic stroke. CRON works wonders against both.

Survival to old age

In a study spanned over many years a report came out in JAMA showing that men with no risk factors had a probability of survival to oldest age as high as 69%. And the probability of reaching 85 years was 55% with no risk factors (which almost CRONers typically meet all Criteria) and fell to 9% with 6 or more risk factors, which most of the people in the U.S have by the time they reach 50. [4].

So the study above indicates that CRONers, just by disease reduction alone can expect much greater chance of survival into their late 80's without the help of Calorie Restriction to actually slow down *AGING* itself.

Aubrey De Grey

Good smart guy, but his theory of an absolute maximum of 2 year extension will be proven wrong in the rhesus monkey studies soon. Obesity avoidance studies at a university which I can't remember the name of right now showed that the average monkey on a CR'd diet lived to around 32 years (equivalent of 96 human years?) and was 30% longer than ad lib with 30% CR. Survival curves on the study from Wisconsin are still too early to tell, but they look like they are doing quite a good study here. NIA studies IMO are just messed up, way too low in fat also.

In the grand scheme of things what can we expect?

If you take a step back a minute and realise that CALORIE RESTRICTION is the only known consistent way to extend maximal lifespan in many species, then it becomes clear that your best bet, by a long shot is to CRON your way to 100+.

Think of the differences in human longevity, from person to person. One person can live decades than another. Isn't that AMAZING?! Calment lived DECADES longer than the average person... Her aging was much slower than the average person. There are centenarians that live to old age and centenarians that survive to old age. Calment lived and survived to old age with luck, genetics and possibly lifestyle factors. But it shows you just how much of a degree there can be between how much longer one can possibly live.

CR can be compared to having good genes. No actually, I'd go further than that... I'd say that CRON is BETTER in some cases than just having good genes. CRON = a genetic shift towards extreme longevity.

The question remains whether we can equal someone like Calments longevity, or can we surpass it easily. My bet would be that through CRON the person with good enough genes will come very close because the rate of aging will be slowed to an equivalent or better than a person who reaches extreme longevity 110+ years. And the extreme reduction in disease, combined with advanced medical care will enable most of us here to become centenarians. Especially for those that started young.

Was Walford being realistic with his numbers?

IMO I think the answer is yes, to a certain extent. I really believe that CR will put us on a survival curve that is ends much beyond what the average person is on. Maybe he was being a tad optimistic but I don't think he was that far off.

From what I've seen, our cohort attracts young looking people for their age, or long term CRON has dramatically slowed down how old they appear to be. Especially long term CRONers.... I wont mention names though, I love you all and don't want anyone to feel bad if I miss them out :p lol.

I believe by starting in ones 20's they will extend their own lifespan by 20-30 years at least. Optimistic ??? I don't care, I hear optimistic people live longer

I don't have the page reference. But DR Roy Walford mentions in his book, and its true.

In order to do LIFE LONG CALORIE RESTRICTION you have to maintain a conviction, a strong belief that Calorie Restriction will result in significant gains in life extension otherwise you probably wont stick to it all your life and gain those many extra years or decades.

The huge difference between when the average person dies, and when the oldest human ever documented lived is huge, spanning over 40 years? That’s a remarkable reduction in the rate of aging. Aging must have been slowed in her, and damn right, CRON will slow the aging for us. To what degree is up for debate. But I would bet that our average life expectancies will be up their with those lucky few who survived to extreme old age without the help of calorie restriction.

If anything is going to work, its CR for sure.


Matt



[1] Study Links Adventist Lifestyle With Longevity http://news.adventist.org/data/2001/06/0995375716/index.html.en

[2] Body mass index and patterns of mortality among Seventh-day Adventist men. Lindsted K, Tonstad S, Kuzma JW.
PMID: 1885263

[3] Fraser GE. Associations between diet and cancer, ischemic heart disease, and all-cause mortality in non-Hispanic white California Seventh-day Adventists. Am J Clin Nutr. 1999 Sep;70(3 Suppl):532S-538S.

[4] Midlife Risk Factors and Healthy Survival in Men http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/296/19/2343

[5] Long-term calorie restriction is highly effective in reducing the risk for atherosclerosis in humans http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/17/6659

[6] Caloric restriction appears to prevent primary aging in the heart http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-01/wuso-cra011206.php

[7] http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/guide/20061101/optimism-may-help-you-live-longer