"I think that no matter what disease we look up, we'll find it associated with the same high carb, low fat, calorie restricted diet."
Obviously this is completely wrong. I am all for a lower carbohydrate (not atkins!) diet in general, because carbohydrates in my opinion are a big problem in diabetes and other diseaes, especially ones coming from processed foods. The carbs coming from plant foods and non root vegetables are absolutely fine. Based on 70 years of animal research a calorie restriction no matter what ratio of C:F:P results in significantly better health and longer lifespans. Lifespans that are beyond the normal for that species. For example, when mice are put on calorie restriction from a young age they can live upto equivalent of 150-180 human years! This is not just merely disease prevent but an actual slowing of the aging process.
Now in humans we've already seen some pretty nice results, this table is from the fontana study done a few years back looking at a small group of people who had been on CR for long term. They by the standards of a 'low carber' are eating many more carbs. Does it result in high risk of disease?
It looks to me that we have an extremely low risk profile for common diseases that kill people. Now you can argue that the controls were not exactly skinny but let that not take away the actual results in the CR group. They are excellent by any standard. Extremely low insulin which is below the normal reference range, blood pressure equivalent to a healthy non-obese 10 year old, cholesterol of a teenager (and they were 50 years old on average), low glucose, virtually no low grade inflammation going on. Everything looks as good as you could hope for and without a doubt confers a very high protection from heart disease and diabetes, and diseases related with inflammation. [2].
Later on then another study came out showing that the hearts of CRONers was on average 15 years younger than their age! [3].
Someone tries to bring up the Minnesota starvation experiment where they experienced dramatic loss of weight and lots of symptoms. But these guys were heavily exercised as well and their nutrition nowhere near as good as CRONies today. In the Biosphere two experiment which you can see the paper abstract HERE they did not experience any significant negative symptoms as in the minnesota experiment!
From the biosphere two paper which resulted in calorie restriction during the 2 year period they were locked in.
Their calories went as low as 1700, and then went back up to the 2400k/cal eating the same food. What this showed was a worsening of most health parameters and a shift away from the CRON biomarkers we see as they consumed more calories.
Our study differs
fundamentally from that of Keys in that the Biosphere 2
crew members were calorie restricted but well supplied with
all other essential nutrients (Tables 1 and 2). The dietary intake
used in the Keys studies was patterned after the postwar
intake of certain semistarved European populations
and may have been deficient in many nutrient factors other
than calories. (The Keys report is not very clear on this issue.)
Also, the period of dietary deprivation in the Keys investigation
lasted only 6 months, in contrast to the 2 years
The subjects of the Keys report
(all male) suffered lethargy, mental confusion, weakness,
and peripheral edema, that is, the classic signs of a
starving malnourished population, and they performed no
work activities. None of these signs appeared in the Biosphere
2 crew members
Now a low carb diet will lower insulin levels, and insulin is well known to be involved in aging, and the lower your insulin and high insulin sensitivity is correlated with better health, but by itself is unlikely to extend maximum lifespan that much. Runners have remarkably similar insulin sensitivity that is much like what we see in calorie restriction, but they do not show the same other benefits we get from calorie restriction with optimal nutrition. [1]. Mice that are exercised also show much better insulin sensitivity, but once again they do not exhibit the huge maximum lifespan extension, only an extension in mean lifespan which means the aging process has not been slowed down. Low carb by itself can only do so much, otherwise, it's calories from ANY source, preferably cutting carbs that will extend lifespan. This graph perfectly shows the correlation between percetnage of food intake relative to ad lib and the maximum lifespan extension. i.e you feed the animals 30% less, on average they will live 30% longer and gain a 30% increase in maximum lifespan, or little less if they are started later in life. CR works in a few species such as; Worms, Spiders, Fish, Guppies, Rats, Mice, Dogs, Rhesus Monkeys and more. A few animal data can be seen HERE on the life extension you get from CR
Some low carbers for instance will tell you that because the animals are fed less carbs that it's not the lowering of calories but it's feeding less 'poison' as they put it, in the form of carbs. So that is why they live longer. No No No! Again, you feed an animal low fat, high fat, high protein, lower protein, high carb, low carb, as long as the animal has enough nutrients and its calories are lowered, it will live longer. Typically the researchers will feed the exact same amount of micronutrients to both groups. So there are no differences to influence the longevity of the animals.
Something else from that thread which is wrong
M Levac says
Cutting total calories means to cut calories below our actual needs. Optimal nutrition explicitly includes fuel and thus total calories. As a consequence, optimal nutrition is impossible to achieve. Therefore you can eat CR or ON but not both.
If CRON was possible, its proponents wouldn't see the need to supplement. Therefore they really practice simple caloric restriction with supplementation in order to simulate optimal nutrition. They don't trust the tenets of CRON.
All of us know how ridiculous this is. I can make up a 1500k/cal diet and easily meet all nutritional requirements without the use of supplements, and I think many female CRONers can go even lower in calories than this and still meet the RDI for all nutrients. By using DWIDP or CRON O METER I can do this very easily. Right now I'm meeting and exceeding almost ALL nutrients without using supplements on a 1700k/cal diet! At extremely low calorie intakes long term CR when started in adulthood requires some additional supplements to keep up the nutrition, but when you start CR from a very young age the mice actually don't get the deficiencies and actually go on to life very, very long lives.
On calorie restriction the animals will develop less cancer, eliminate diabetes, almost eliminate heart disease, kidney disease, alzhiemers, parkinsons, autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, a model of MS, Sjorgrens syndrome. It also eliminates or attenuates allergies like hayfever, dustmite allergy. It also helps reduce asthma (which can be made worse by allergies). Osteoarthritis can also be minimized from CR and delayed even [see the graph on dogs below]. CR preserves immune function with age, it attenuates the loss of lean body mass with age as you will see in a graph from a long term rhesus monkey calorie restriction study[5]. Not only do CR eliminate, slow down or delay all these diseases... it also keeps you looking much younger too. A healthy diet can slow down the signs of aging, but it seems from the identical diets that animals are placed on that it's CR that is the biggest factor.
So first lets see some survival curves and tables from animal experiments comparing ad lib with CR fed group.
This was a recent study where they fed dogs 25% fewer calories and maintained this from age 3 year. Which is already quite late into the animals life. The animals food intake had to be increased during the study because some showed signs of being very underweight. Although this was a concern for the researchers the animals probably would have tolerated it well. But they don't want really early deaths from a long term study so they upped the calories in the restricted group.
The results we quite remarkable and the survival curve is similar to what we see in mice. The only reason there the maximum lifespan was not significantly extended was simply because there were so few dogs in the study. When studies on mice use a much larger group. From a magazine article that was published on the AOR website (2).
While eleven of the original 24 CR-fed dogs were alive at the
end of the twelfth year of the experiment, only one out of
24 control dogs survived that long. And 13.3 years into the
study, the last conventionally-fed dog had died, while one
in four of the CR-fed dogs were still alive and kicking. The last
dog in the CR group pushed on to nearly fifteen years of age, becoming a canine “centenarian” nearly two years after the last of the conventionally-fed
animals had died.
Also they experienced much less problems with osteoarthritis, which when severe is pretty much the end of a dogs life because it really makes their quality of life poor and is painful. This is from [7]. At all ages you can see that there is much less arthritis in the CR dogs.
Calorie Restriction Muscle loss - Yes calorie restriction can result in lower lean body mass but what is interesting is that overtime with aging you lose muscle, calorie restriction seems to slow this age related loss of muscle mass down in dogs, rhesus monkeys, rats and mice, and almost certainly humans too.
Another quote from the lowcarb thread:
The very concept of cutting calories to maintain muscle mass is absurd. Everywhere else we advise to increase calories especially protein to maintain muscle mass. How could eating less cause us to retain more muscle? It's impossible to reconcile the two hypotheses.
Impossible? A graph from [5]. If you look the Calorie Restriction monkeys have more estimated skeletal muscle mass at 17 years than the normally fed control group do at 10 years! This is like in human equivalent of a 51 year old calorie restricted male having more ESM than a 30 year old. The muscle according to rodent studies also functions better. [6].
And from the article [8].
"Scientists from the University of Calgary found that rats fed a nutritious, calorie-restricted diet maintained their muscle mass much better than rats that ate a normal amount of food. "It's the equivalent of an 80-year-old rat with the muscles of a 20-year-old rat," said Russ Hepple, a physiologist at the University of Calgary.
Although it is well-documented that a low calorie diet increases life expectancy, this is the first study showing a connection between diet and strength. In Hepple's experiment, rats that consumed a low calorie diet lost only 20 percent of their muscle mass as they aged, with no loss of muscle function. Rats fed a normal diet lost 50 percent of their strength and 50 percent of their muscle function as they aged."
The fact that CR works in every species it has ever been tested in makes it very likely that CR will work to some extent in humans. We will certainly have a higher life expectancy than the average person eating a normal diet. I've posted this before but HERE
is a survival curve of seventh day adventist who don't smoke, drink alcohol and eat a vegetarian plant based diet. They are NOT on a CRON diet though, their average BMI in recent studies show it's aroun 24-25. It's also interesting that the results in humans from the baltimore study showed that the same biomarkers that are seen in humans and monkeys such as lower body temperature, lower insulin levels and maintaining higher levels of DHEA results in longer lifspans.
Now I'll leave you with a collection of pictures I've collected over the years of comparison pictures of CR'd and Ad lib age matched and how much they differ in their appearance. They consume the same food, just different amounts.
You can see the photo album whic I'll keep updating over time so make sure you check back at this link. It's a link to my facebook page with the pictures. HERE
CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE
The above picture on the left column you have Johann in 1990 and then in 2003. You can see his fur has changed completely and shows a general aged appearance. If you look at Eeyore on the right column the change is much more subtle and still looks like a youthful monkey.
In the above picture the normal fed rhesus monkey on the top row shows that he is frail, aged, wrinkled, probably diseased. You can clearly see by his posture too. The age of the normal fed monkey is 30.1 years which is about 90 human years. The monkey below in the first picture is just a year older at 14.3 years than the control and he has a similar appearance at this age. Fast forward to when the calorie restricted monkey is 32 years old which would be about 96 human years and he still looks extremely youthful, nice posture, nice coat, and probably generally much better off and expected to live a few more years yet. Maybe another monkey centenarian.
The above pictures shows the Left Rhesus monkey here is on the CR diet and is compared with a grey'd normal fed monkey who didn't have his calories reduced. Aging is much less apparent in the CR'd monkey on the left.
NEW%5B.JPG)
Healthy aged calorie restricted monkey on the left. Old frail age matched well fed monkey on the right. See the difference?
Two mice. One has been CR'd for his life and the other hasn't. As you can see by the quality of the fur the CR animal is in much better condition, and he would have likely go on to live a happy, disease free, longer life long after the bottom mouse has died.
Will CR work in humans?
CR will work, and in my opinion is working in humans. At the end I absolutely do not give a crap what diet works best and have no need to defend any 'popular diet', I'll do high carb, low carb, low protein or high protein... whatever, give me the evidence that it extends maximum lifespan in a healthy long lived mouse and I'll do it. And please do NOT fall for the mistake that something extended lifespan without looking at the actual mouse used and data first. Just take a look at the control group lived and check it out. If it's a 'diseased mouse' that lives an abnormally short time then anything that extends its life is useless data, because it might just be corrective rather than having some anti-aging effect. Now I'm not picking on low carb, because in actual fact there is some data that shows when CR'd mice are put on a higher fat (40%) or higher protein (upto 50%) they actually live even longer. But remember, whatever the macronutrient level in the CR group it always tends to live far longer anyway. So what I choose to eat by is a 'ZONED DIET'. And actually there is an excellent post on this that I'll share a link to in my next post... I'll have to copy the text and put it up on a link for you but it's very long and very well thought out and lots of references supplied. Basically mice on CR do better in the Zone than a higher carb diet.
When you go to these vegan, vegetarian, low carb forums or whatever, think about what you're actually reading because there will be a heavy amount of bias going on and people making some false statements. Sure I have my bias that calorie restriction is better to live by, but it's actually backed up by 75 years of experimentation and some very good science, and recently very good results in humans than have been doing CR for a long time. The human results seem to almost be identical to what happens in the animals. We not only look younger than our actual age, but we're healthier than the majority of people. Calorie Restriction is easy to do, you just lower calories and are able to eat an amazing variety of delicous foods without worrying that it has fat, or that it has too many carbs or protein. At the end of the day, as MR popular saying goes; "it's calories, calories, calories".
Calories Intake is the most important factor in mean and maximum lifespan. CR works in yeast, worms, spiders, rats, mice, dogs, monkeys, cows among others. It probably works for humans to some extent, although it's not known how dramatic the effect of calorie restriction would be. In animal studies if you restrct from an early age you have a dramatic increase in lfiespan in proportion to the degree of calorie restriction. This means, if you restrict an organisms calorie intake relative to what it wants to eat (ad lib) by 30%, it will live on average 30% longer and it's maximum lifespan extended by 30%. A true slowing of the aging process rather than just squaring the curve and extending only mean lifespan.
Survival curves for 4 groups. Survival curve for sedentary control rats in group B is significantly different from that of runners in group A (P < 0.02), food-restricted runners in group C (P < 0.0001), and food-restricted sedentary rats in group D (P < 0.0001). Survival curve for runners in group A is significantly different from that of food-restricted runners in group C (P < 0.01) and food-restricted sedentary rats in group D (P < 0.01).
References
1. Calorie restriction appears better than exercise at slowing primary aging
2. Calorie restriction reduces risk of heart attack, stroke and diabetes
3. Caloric restriction appears to prevent primary aging in the heart
4 . AOR. Truth to the fountain of youth
5. Attenuation of sarcopenia by dietary restriction in rhesus monkeys.
6. A. M. Payne, S. L. Dodd, and C. Leeuwenburgh
Life-long calorie restriction in Fischer 344 rats attenuates age-related loss in skeletal muscle-specific force and reduces extracellular space
J Appl Physiol, December 1, 2003; 95(6): 2554 - 2562.
7. Gail K. Smith, Erin R
Lifelong diet restriction and radiographic evidence of osteoarthritis of the hip joint in dogs
8. Calorie restriction shown to boost longevity and slow loss of muscle mass in animal experiment
9. Lindsted K, Tonstad S, Kuzma JW.
Body mass index and patterns of mortality among Seventh-day Adventist men.
PMID: 1885263
10. Holloszy JO.
Mortality rate and longevity of food-restricted exercising male rats: a reevaluation.
J Appl Physiol. 1997 Feb;82(2):399-403.
PMID: 9049716
No comments:
Post a Comment