Stardate 20010904.0951 (On Screen): It was discovered in the 1930's that lab mice who were put on a starvation diet between ages 3-12 months and thereafter permitted to eat as much as they want would live about 50% longer than normal mice (48 months instead of 32 on average), and they remain youthful for much longer too. But this isn't "a diet"; these mice are
starving. They were given about two thirds of the food that a normal mouse would need to grow normally, and they are runts when grown -- long lived runts, however. Later research into this showed that caloric restriction was what was important. It didn't matter what these mice ate as long as they weren't given enough of it. Other research has shown that the same thing could be done with adults and they would also get the benefit thereafter. Of course, the question was why this happened? And even better, could the same result be accomplished without subjecting humans to 10 years of inadequate diet. Now researchers may have begin finding out the answer. It wasn't an answer that was possible to find until just recently, because the analysis techniques didn't exist. They've found a group of genes which seem to be activated by starvation. The next step will be to figure out just what they're doing, and then to figure out how to accomplish the same effect other ways (or perhaps to find some other way to activate the same genes).
This article, unfortunately, perpetuates the understatement that a simple diet would make a difference. I expected better of Nature. We're not talking about simply slimming down, we're talking about a level of food intake which would eventually kill you. In any case, this research is still much too preliminary to be converted to clinical practice. (discuss)
