Just How Many Calories, Then?
i've noticed as people age past 60 there are less fat ones
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.
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