Eating less--Live longer

[rosegold]

The investigators found that the dieting dwarf mice lived the longest of the four groups, while normal mice allowed to eat as they pleased had the shortest lives.

This certainly adds to the evidence that calorie restriction has a very impressive ability to prolong life. Experts suspect that the benefit of calorie restriction on life span has evolutionary roots. In times of food shortage, the body's metabolism adjusts to aid survival. And certain hormonal regulators of metabolism have been shown to help determine the life spans of flies, worms and yeast. Cutting Calories Can Increase Your Lifespan - Articles

Eat less = sleep less, do more, live longer, focus better, etc.

[Andrew Brunelle]

It also depends on what calories you are eating. If you are eating potato chips and doughnuts, but just a little bit of them, you'll still die at a young age. But I do agree that calorie restriction does lead to a longer life, as long as you don't border on anorexic. Myself, I eat maybe 1200 to 1500 calories a day. A lot of it is whole foods and some is not. I drink a lot of green tea and water and it seems to help my appetite. The more you have to process, the more energy your body expends.

[Fullcrum]

I assume there is a fine line between eating less and losing muscle. Athletes do not undereat to improve performance. I wonder if undereating comes at the cost of physical ability, or if it is truly a win/win situation.

[openeyes]

Originally Posted by Fullcrum

I assume there is a fine line between eating less and losing muscle. Athletes do not undereat to improve performance. I wonder if undereating comes at the cost of physical ability, or if it is truly a win/win situation.

That's part of why a lot of people who know of caloric restriction still hold off on doing it, as they'd like to remain athletic, and maintaining significant muscle mass along with doing lots of exercise may be a challenge on 1500 calories per day. For the nonathletic though, CR can be helpful in remaining more trim as one ages than if following a relugar ad lib diet. For getting many of the benefits of CR while maintaining enough muscle mass, people are trying out variants of Intermittent Fasting.

Also, be careful about trying any of this before you've finished growing (early to mid 20s). Mammals who start CR from birth do live longer, but they never reach full size.

[ChaosKiwi]

This study doesn't make sense to me. If you give any animal that scavenges hard for just enough food to survive an unlimited food supply then of course its going to overeat and die early. And I mean, eating less? Less than what? Anorexics don't live that long.

[Liveformx64]

I have read this article before, and I am not so sure it applies directly to humans.

My intuition tells me that if you graphed out lifespan an calorie consumption you would get a perfect bell curve. Those who live the longest eat a moderate amount of calories.