These "restricted calorie" studies are pure crap. The control groups
are usually fed un-natural pelletized manufactured crap for food. Then
when they feed the test group less of the crap food, they live longer
than the control group. Then they attribute it to restricted calories.
Hey, the less poison you eat the longer you will live. It is that
simple. It has nothing to do with calories.

TC

NYC XYZ wrote:
> What makes a diet "calorie-restricted"??
>
> They used to feed us 3K-calorie breakfasts during Army basic training.
> Them MREs are supposed to be like 5K calories! I was in the best shape
> of my life, despite having accrued problems like a bad back, etc.
>
> How many calories does the body need if you're staying home all day
> reading a book or watching one of them holiday season re-run marathons
> (Honeymooners, Star Trek, Three's Company, Godzilla)?
>
> How many calories if you go to the gym three times a week
> weight-lifting for about an hour each session?
>
> I must say, I'm impressed to learn that the Dalai Lama is, what, close
> to seventy? He really looks forty-something!
>
> Also, I wonder what effect sex and the sex drive have on all this...I
> feel most alive when having sex, but in between girls I also feel
> great, just in a different way...kinda like the strength you feel
> before a workout, and the sense of strength you have after it....
>
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/he...&ex=1162530000
>
>
> EXCERPTS
>
> "In mice, calorie restriction doesn't just extend life span,"
> said Leonard P. Guarente, professor of biology at the Massachusetts
> Institute of Technology. "It mitigates many diseases of aging:
> cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease. The gain is
> just enormous."
>
> ...
>
> Despite widespread scientific enthusiasm, the evidence that calorie
> restriction works in humans is indirect at best. The practice was
> popularized in diet books by Dr. Roy Walford, a legendary pathologist
> at the University of California, Los Angeles, who spent much of the
> last 30 years of his life following a calorie-restricted regimen. He
> died of Lou Gehrig's disease in 2004 at 79.
>
> ...
>
> Animals on restricted diets seem particularly resistant to
> environmental stresses like oxidation and heat, perhaps even radiation.
> "It is a very deep, very important function," Dr. Miller said.
> Experts theorize that limited access to energy alarms the body, so to
> speak, activating a cascade of biochemical signals that tell each cell
> to direct energy away from reproductive functions, toward repair and
> maintenance. The calorie-restricted organism is stronger, according to
> this hypothesis, because individual cells are more efficiently
> repairing mutations, using energy, defending themselves and mopping up
> harmful byproducts like free radicals.
>
> ...
>
> "The stressed cell is really pulling out all the stops" to preserve
> itself, said Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, a molecular biologist at the
> University of California, San Francisco. "This system could have
> evolved as a way of letting animals take a timeout from reproduction
> when times are harsh."
>
> ...
>
> Despite the initially promising results from studies of primates, some
> scientists doubt that calorie restriction can ever work effectively in
> humans. A mathematical model published last year by researchers at
> University of California, Los Angeles, and University of California,
> Irvine, predicted that the maximum life span gain from calorie
> restriction for humans would be just 7 percent. A more likely figure,
> the authors said, was 2 percent.
>
> ...
>
> While an anti-aging pill may be the next big blockbuster, some
> ethicists believe that the all-out determination to extend life span is
> veined with arrogance. As appointments with death are postponed, says
> Dr. Leon R. Kass, former chairman of the President's Council on
> Bioethics, human lives may become less engaging, less meaningful, even
> less beautiful.
>
> "Mortality makes life matter," Dr. Kass recently wrote.
> "Immortality is a kind of oblivion - like death itself."
>
> That man's time on this planet is limited, and rightfully so, is a
> cultural belief deeply held by many. But whether an increasing life
> span affords greater opportunity to find meaning or distracts from the
> pursuit, the prospect has become too great a temptation to ignore -
> least of all, for scientists.
>
> "It's a just big waste of talent and wisdom to have people die in
> their 60s and 70s," said Dr. Sinclair of Harvard.