Low Calorie Diet Could Help Longevity

Ukmedix is aware of reports that say that those people who eat the least live the longest. In fact the first serious study into the connection between low calorie diets and longevity was done as far back as 1935 in the United States by Dr McCay and Dr Maynard. These two researchers looked at the effects of a very low calorie diet on rats. The idea was just to reduce the calorie intake but at the same time ensure that the correct amount of vitamins and other essential nutrients were present in the diet. The diet was designed to keep the rats at a semi starvation level giving them just enough calories and energy to function normally.

Alongside the low calorie rats were another group of rats that were fed a high calorie diet again with all the essential nutrients needed and they were all carefully monitored for healthiness and longevity. The rats in the low calorie outlived the high calorie rats considerably.

Since 1935 more research has been done into the link between low calorie intake and longevity and it all points to the same conclusion that lowering your calories is good and healthy for you and can extend your life. Research has been done in this regard with flies, fish, worms, cats and dogs. However scientist are not entirely sure as to why this is the case and what the is actually happening to the body on a low calorie diet.

With humans the problem is finding people who are prepared to live on a low calorie diet until they die, however some researchers in the United States say that they think that it is possible that limiting the calorie intake may reduce the speed of the DNA breakdown which happens when animals get older.

The researchers looked at fifty men and women from the age of 26 to 49 all of whom were slightly overweight. The researchers divided the participants into forur groups and gave them different diets depending on which group they were in. Group 1 had a diet that was formulated so that their weight would not change and that had all the correct amounts of nutrition. Group 2 were fed a diet that was more or less the same but had 25% reduction in calories. Group 3 had only a 12.5% reduction in calories and they were asked to exert themselves physically to increase the levels of their energy use by 12.5% also. Group 4 was given a very low calorie diet designed to lower body weight by 15% fast and then it was increased to maintain the weight level.

Studies have previously shown that people who live very long have three things that set them aside from other people, They are a greater than normal amount of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) that comes from the adrenal gland, a smaller than normal amount of insulin and finally a lower body temperature than normal.

The researchers set out to determine if by changing the diet patterns and calorie levels of the participants they could have an effect on these three factors. The results showed that the low calorie intake could low both body temperature and also insulin levels however the DHEAS level was unchanged in all the participants. While this gives us some answers it also opens up a host of new questions and specifically what and whether high DHEAS levels have any effect on the longevity as we now know that it is not linked to calorie reduction.

The other useful bit of research that came out from the study was that prolonged calorie reduction had the effect of slowing the metabolic rate so that after a few months the low calorie participants were able to exert themselves physically while expending less energy. The body learns to compensate for the lack of energy it is gettig by becoming more efficient.

One other observation was that DNA damage which happens with age was slowed down in those participants who ate the low calorie diets. In the people who ate normally the DNA damage remain constant.