12 ms·

Eating less can lead to a longer life: study in mice shows why

219 points by XzetaU8 2y ago

pattimanners1 2y ago
My husband had PD-5 programme about 4 months ago. he sleeps soundly, works out frequently, and is now very active. It doesn’t make the Parkinson’s go away but it did give him better quality of life. I’m surprised a lot of PWP haven’t heard of it, we got the treatment from binehealthcenter. com
deleted 2y ago
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bubblesnort 2y ago
A TV documentary in 2002 said they studied 2 groups of rats. The control group had a steady supply of food and could eat whenever they want. The other group was on a diet. After 2 years, the control group all sat in a corner of their cage being fat and lazy. The other group continued powering their ferris wheel generators and were not being lazy at all. They hypothesized that too much food made the body more prone to free radicals and the damage was more difficult to repair in the control group. Effectively making them age faster than the diet group.
- Plankaluel 2y ago
  Not sure a TV documentary from 22 years ago is the source to get scientific explanations from ...
  - bubblesnort 2y ago
    TV documentaries today are arguably worse. Dumbed down to "here's someone who knows science stuff" and "here's a startup that does science stuff" over and over again. The point I was trying to make is that many "news" articles aren't really new. It's not unheard of that the publisher just wants your attention so they'll keep rehasing old stuff.
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure the free radical theory of aging is not mainstream any more. Too many studies of antioxidants have shown that they don't help, out even make things worse
- kelipso 2y ago
  Reminds me of the rat park experiment on drug addiction. Put the rats in small cages and give them morphine, they get addicted. Put them in the rat park where they have lots of things to do and they don’t get addicted. Food overindulgence is probably result of similar effects too. This longer life experiment probably has issues too. Like the rats might be getting fed some crappy food in a cage where they can’t do anything and so just sit there and get fat. As opposed to getting not enough food and go into some kind of hibernation stage where they don’t do anything and just sit there and not get fat. What a life for either of these rats. What a life for a human to emulate.
bjornsing 2y ago
Does the study show why (as the title says)? Can’t say I got it…
- austinjp 2y ago
  Nope. The 'why' in the title is misleading. They suspect some unknown factors but aren't sure what and whether they can be targeted for anti-ageing interventions.
austinjp 2y ago
I can't see a clear conclusion, unfortunately. 'Further study required' as ever. It also seems that 'resilience' to the stress of caloric restriction is key to gaining most benefit but it's not clear exactly what resilience is, and whether it's manipulable. From the article: Weight loss and metabolic improvements do not explain the longevity benefits of severe dietary restrictions. Cutting calories by 40% yielded the longest longevity bump, but intermittent fasting and less severe calorie restriction also increased average lifespan. The dieting mice also displayed favourable metabolic changes, such as reductions in body fat and blood sugar levels. However, the effects of dietary restriction on metabolism and lifespan didn’t always change in lockstep. To the authors’ surprise, the mice that lost the most weight on a calorie-limited diet tended to die younger than did animals that lost relatively modest amounts. This suggests that processes beyond simple metabolic regulation drive how the body responds to limited-calorie regimes. What mattered most for lengthening lifespan were traits related to immune health and red-blood-cell function. Also key was overall resilience [...] The most-resilient animals lost the least weight, maintained immune function and lived longer. In one of the most comprehensive clinical trials of a low-calorie diet in healthy, non-obese individuals, researchers found that the intervention helped to dial down metabolic rates — a short-term effect thought to signal longer-term benefits for lifespan. But the mouse data from Churchill’s team suggest that metabolic measurements might reflect ‘healthspan’ — the period of life spent free from chronic disease and disability — but that other metrics are needed to say whether such ‘anti-ageing’ strategies can truly extend life.
- CraftingLinks 2y ago
  Mice are very different from humans in that they are prey and we are predator. The reason that this is significant is that evolutionary, mice life history is optimalized for more offspring and shorter life, whereas predators are optimized for long life and few offspring. We know since 1993 with the discovery of the daf-2 gene (a nematode insulin receptor) that genetics can drastically affect longevity. However, and this is my own professional hypothesis, in humans we have tuned the genetic dial to max lifespan, whereas in mice and worms it is not. In these animals there is plenty of flexibility left to tune up lifespan, not so in humans. We may see moderate effects due to increased health though.
xenospn 2y ago
Refuted by every Jewish grandmother ever.
bamboozled 2y ago
Didn't we start living longer as we had access to more and better food...and ate it?
- FollowingTheDao 2y ago
  You are thinking of Antibiotics.
  - bamboozled 2y ago
    No I'm not...
    - FollowingTheDao 2y ago
      Let me rephrase that less sarcastically. More food did not lead to longer lifespan in modern humans. Antibiotics are responsible for increasing human lifespan and estimated 20 years. https://www.antibioticresearch.org.uk/happen-antibiotics-stopped-working/#:~:text=It%20has%20been%20estimated%20that,deafness%20to%20mental%20health%20issues https://www.antibioticresearch.org.uk/happen-antibiotics-sto...
      - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
        I suspect they are taking about the time during which our ancestors evolved into modern humans.
- meindnoch 2y ago
  We did. But we have overshot a bit.
komali2 2y ago
> "The intervention is a stressor,” Churchill explains. The most-resilient animals lost the least weight, maintained immune function and lived longer. Very happy to hear that my struggles with weight loss are because of my resilience and a strong indicator that I will live a long life ;)
tomp 2y ago
“Intermittent fasting and/or caloric restriction extends mice lifespan.” is quite old news. The reason mice are used in labs isn’t because they’re a good model of humans, but because they’re easy to bread and have short lifespans. Studies of caloric restriction in monkeys didn’t cause lifespan extension, casting doubt on its effect in humans. Peter Attia (best source of longevity science) wrote about this 5 years ago. https://peterattiamd.com/calorie-restriction-part-iia-monkey-studies/ https://peterattiamd.com/calorie-restriction-part-iia-monkey...
- deleted 2y ago
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- deleted 2y ago
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- 8b16380d 2y ago
  Mmmmmmm mouse bread
  - doubled112 2y ago
    I read it more like a mouse sandwich. I don’t think there’s much meat on a mouse though, especially when the experiment is to have them eat less.
  - riehwvfbk 2y ago
    No, the GP is referring to breaded mice. Indeed, the recipe is so easy. Dip mice in batter and deep fry.
- scotty79 2y ago
  Interesting question is why it didn't work for monkeys. It might have been a difference in protocol. Studies on monkey's are not easy to repeat. Somebody should test caloric restrictions on mice with explicit goal of making it not work.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
okr 2y ago
But do not stop eating. My advice.
macrolime 2y ago
Could be the reason is aging is programmed and when food is scarce the program changes to delay aging, such that the organism has a better chance to survive longer and reproduce once food is less scarce and at that point turn up the rate of aging again.
- 0x1ceb00da 2y ago
  Or that extra foods puts more stress on your organs. Liver, kidneys, pancrease, etc have to do more work and for some reason the body isn't able to repair that and they wear out quicker.
  - 0x1ceb00da 2y ago
    Some googling suggests this is what causes type 2 diabetes. Pancreas wears out and stops producing insulin.
    - chriscappuccio 2y ago
      After chronic insulin resistance causes higher amounts of insulin to be generated for long periods of time
    - nradov 2y ago
      And that's why you shouldn't rely on Google for anything important. Type-2 diabetes has more to do with insulin resistance than lack of insulin production.
  - exceptione 2y ago
    All tissue in organs are under stress and cells die of. That is normal, also for young people. The body produces new cell by making copies of dna. What is problematic however is that after some time, there is a built up of errors in the dna. If those errors do not get corrected, that is when you see a decline in organ quality, what we call aging. If interested, see my other posts for more pointers.
- exceptione 2y ago
belter 2y ago
The money shot: "...But other factors — including immune health, genetics and physiological indicators of resiliency — seem to better explain the link between cutting calories and increased lifespan..."
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Anecdotally, every chronically sick person (always getting colds, coughs, sinus infections, headaches, UTIs, other symptoms) I know is overweight. This doesn't show causation, maybe having a weak immune system contributes to being hungry and overeating but all the normal weight or lean people I know seem to rarely be sick.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    Knowing nothing about your surroundings, overweight people tend to avoid medical care if they can bare with the symptoms, which make them more subject to longer colds, infections, headaches etc. It's a well known effect: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381543/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381543/
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      I wonder if the same is/was true for smokers? I can imagine people not wanting to hear "you need to lose weight" every time they visit the doctor. What about "you need to stop smoking" or "you need to stop drinking" or admonishments to stop any other self-destructive behaviors?
      - makeitdouble 2y ago
        Yes, there's probably a similar effect, with a key difference being that smoking and drinking can be masked a bit easier if it's not an emergency (e.g. sobering for a day before going in) where there's no lying about one's weight.
    - nradov 2y ago
      That doesn't make any sense. Medical care can't really reduce the length of common cold symptoms. It mostly comes down to the effectiveness of your own immune system. Obesity has a number of negative effects on the immune system.
exceptione 2y ago
There is an interview [0] with Hoeijmakers, who has championed the idea that the single root cause for both aging and cancer are faults in dna. Faults in dna prevent rna copies, aka _transcription stress_. One of his theses was that if faults in dna happen randomly, we would see aging the most in the largest genes. [1] In his experiments [2] he was able to turn the knob of dna repair, also in humans, from "organism growth" to "organism survival". Survival mode can be induced when confronted with food scarcity. If we can unravel the underlying mechanism, we should be able to enlarge our lifespan. ___ 0. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2024/10/11/de-geneticus-die-gezond-103-wil-worden-a4868753 https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2024/10/11/de-geneticus-die-gezond... 1. https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0168-9525%2824%2900027-1 https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0168-9525%2824%2900... 2. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19329 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19329
- zagrebian 2y ago
  There was a Veritasium video about these two modes. Survival mode is triggered not just by food scarcity, but also by extreme heat, extreme cold, and one other thing (I forgot).
- FollowingTheDao 2y ago
  The single greatest contributor to DNA damage is oxidative stress. For example: https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/19/11664 https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/19/11664
  - exceptione 2y ago
    Hoeijmakers mentions that. Fasting activates anti-oxidants. For example, in the Netherlands hospitals are starting to experiment with fasting before a surgery. During surgery arteries arteries are opened, bringing blood in contact with oxygen. With pre activated anti-oxidants damage will be minimized, helping with recovery.
thenerdhead 2y ago
We are slowly learning that our immune system is the key to longevity. Many articles these last few years on ways to renew it, ways to treat dysfunction, and the common bad guys we really need to remove from our bodies as they are directly linked to currently incurable diseases like T1D, MS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ME/CFS, Long COVID, and more. It seems very realistic we may cure/reverse disease course for a handful of these within the next decade at this rate. Many novel clinical trials are happening to probe at the causes and if proven, we could have new drugs quickly due to the pandemic forcing supply chains to be able to meet antigen targets.
- voisin 2y ago
  > the common bad guys we really need to remove from our bodies Can you elaborate?
  - thenerdhead 2y ago
    Over the last four years we have made tremendous progress in identifying pathogenic antigens as the main culprit in these diseases. Some may be caused by undetected low grade chronic infections and some may be lingering antigens causing constant immune system activation / dysfunction.
- aashu_dwivedi 2y ago
  can you elaborate what are the medical trials which are going on for this?
  - DJBunnies 2y ago
    I’m skeptical it has basis in medicine, but I’m here to see too.
  - thenerdhead 2y ago
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-024-01911-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-024-01911-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41531-024-00716-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41531-024-00716-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00470-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00470-5 https://www.science.org/content/article/long-covid-trials-aim-clear-lingering-virus-help-patients-need https://www.science.org/content/article/long-covid-trials-ai... https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=54970 https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=54970 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00871-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00871-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01274-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01274-3 https://www.fda.gov/drugs/news-events-human-drugs/fda-approves-treatment-adults-alzheimers-disease https://www.fda.gov/drugs/news-events-human-drugs/fda-approv... Immunotherapy is entering the golden age and we're about to find out what and what doesn't work.
sukhavati 2y ago
Caloric restriction (CR) leading to longer lifespan doesn’t generalize, including rhesus monkeys [1]. Moreover, across various species there seems to be negative correlation between average lifespan and effectiveness of CR and lifespan extension [2]. [1] https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1844282914521096501 https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1844282914521096501 [2] https://x.com/powerfultakes/status/1844310815819931661 https://x.com/powerfultakes/status/1844310815819931661
- MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
  Crémieux is fantastic, highly recommended.
Horffupolde 2y ago
Fasting is widespread in religions. Can’t be a coïncidence.
- scotty79 2y ago
  It's more likely because hunger was a common human experience for entire history so doing it on purpose seems like a quirky, hip thing to do and that's what religions flock to for the purposes of attracting followers.
- senectus1 2y ago
  So is wearing funny hats, and performing acts of violence on opposing believers and unbelievers (not to mention their own believers). I wouldn't put too much "faith" in religions authority on whats correct or not. Also, absolutely it can be a coincidance. Your standards for truth are very poor.
  - wiml 2y ago
    I am currently seeking funding for my research into the longevity effects of wearing funny hats. Previous research on organ-grinder monkeys has been ambiguous and it's hard to get IRB approval. My lab is currently developing tiny hats for fruit flies and investigating what a fruit fly finds funny.
- swayvil 2y ago
  Fasting gets you high. Bundles well with meditation, sleep-deprivation, etc. (which leads to "religious visions" etc)
- spcebar 2y ago
  I think religious fasting is more about the symbolic significance of fasting as an act of self denial and self cleansing, but there are plenty of religious dietary restrictions in religions that probably stem from ideas about health and food safety.
  - kamaal 2y ago
scotty79 2y ago
I'm doing 24h breaks between 24h eating periods because I was slightly overweight. I lost 10lbs in less than 2 months without any additional restrictions or exercise. I noticed no side effects. It's also super easy to keep up esp. when compared with my previous attempt at restricting sugary snacks. 'When' is so much easier to manage than 'what'. If I feel hungry I just need to distract myself for few hours and it's fine.
- kadomony 2y ago
  Wait, so you're just not eating every other day?
  - wileydragonfly 2y ago
    Anorexia works!
    - scotty79 2y ago
      Wow. Losing weight by not eating apparently is not the correct, moral way to do it either. That's a kind of shaming that even Ozempic patients don't get. Apparently the only moral way is to struggle with terrible exertion and discomfort and mostly fail but sometimes succeed. Only then you earned joining the club of people with healthy, normal weight.
    - formerly_proven 2y ago
      This is probably the dumbest comment I've seen on HN regarding weight loss so far, and that's really saying something considering the recent Ozempic thread.
    - smolder 2y ago
      Anorexia is when people starve themselves to an unhealthy degree based on mental issues, body dysmorphia, something like that. Someone intermittent fasting to lose excess weight and having success at it isn't the same.
      - 2y ago
ck2 2y ago
Every single longevity (life extension) supplement or drug or technique that I've ever looked at involves pushing the person DOWN to a baseline Which means even if they work to give you more years, you will lose fitness. It is physically impossible to be held down to baseline and yet achieve stress-adaptation from exercise. Everything from NAD+ supplementation to metformin to fasting, they all push your metabolism and other bodily function to an idle state. It is useless, you'll live longer but you will be feeble.
- bratwurst3000 2y ago
  i thought about this also but then there is this recent science that the body of a office worker uses the same calories as someone doing body work. saw it on kurzgesagt. so by this theory humans should be very energetic even with only the baseline
  - ck2 2y ago
    I only burn 80 calories when running a 7 minute mile but the average person uses a lot more if they are untrained. The office-worker uses the same calories as a workout because they have no fitness and their heartrate is sky high even at idle.
    - squidgedcricket 2y ago
      Is heart rate directly proportional to calories burned?
- FollowingTheDao 2y ago
  Yes, there is a balance. IF you think of your body like a car it can make sense. The more you drive your car the faster it will wear down. Not driving your car can help it last a long time but it is useless. But driving it to much and too fast will wear it down before its' time. Drive your car when you need to, but not too fast. And make sure you give it good gas and take care of the fluids and maintenance. And live knowing that everything is impermanent and one day your car will be gone.
elwebmaster 2y ago
There is just one “little” problem which remains unsolved: how to make money while “not selling” calories? It’s easy to make money by selling more calories: you add sugars, artificial compounds leading to mental addiction, you invest in heavy marketing and expansive distribution channels. All of this makes your product available and desirable, a money printing machine, at the cost of society’s health and wellbeing. So until someone can answer the question of how to do the same without the side effect to society, unfortunately the majority will continue to suffer for the benefit of the very few.
- wildrhythms 2y ago
  Who is 'you'?
  - elwebmaster 2y ago
    You is the processed food industry.
- apwell23 2y ago
  Its a way for us to winnow out the weak willed
  - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
    It would be just as true but much funnier if you said "sinners".
- Balgair 2y ago
  The old adage here applies: "How do you sell ice to Eskimos? You call it French ice." Same kinda thing. You call the net-negative calories: French calories or some other crap like that.
- kelipso 2y ago
  There is no particular need for society to have an industry that sells unhealthy food. It can go the way of horses, would only be a net positive for society.
jebarker 2y ago
If you do intermittent fasting you won't necessarily live longer, but it will feel much longer.
- aherforth 2y ago
  I laughed at this
- penguin_booze 2y ago
  Only initially. After a while, hunger and craving feel less of an emergency, and blends into the background, like breathing is--you tend to notice it's happening occasionally, but then go meh.
  - pessimizer 2y ago
    I believe that's the secret effectiveness of intermittent fasting. It teaches people who have a panic response when they feel the faintest bit of hunger how to wait, and over a long period of time kills that panic response. I started IF probably around 2014 at 215 lbs (6'), and dropped about a pound a week for 6 months of it, leaving me at probably 185. Over the next year, I went back up to maybe 205, then did another six months and got down to 180. This happened probably twice more, and by 2020 my weight had reset to 170-175. By reset, I mean that since 2020, I've paid absolutely no attention to my weight, or the amount I eat (although the variety is important.) I'm always between 169-176. At this second, I am 171.4 lbs. I think intermittent fasting taught me to be that way. Learning that you're not going to die if you don't eat for the rest of the day is like learning a language. It's recalibrating your own instinct for homeostasis, which is the characteristic intrinsic urge that all living beings have. It resists tampering, and really has to be convinced over time.
- KolmogorovComp 2y ago
  Thank you for this, the only result that does not need more studies to be proven.
black_13 2y ago
[dead]
Zamicol 2y ago
The title is misleading. This is not true in more complex animals like humans. https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1844282914521096501 https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1844282914521096501
avazhi 2y ago
I love how neither this Nature article nor the actual study shed any new light on this area. We've known about this for decades; we've also known that it isn't just down to metabolic rate changes for... decades.
mikesabbagh 2y ago
there are new reportsin humans that intermittent fasting doubles your rate of heart disease. I am curious to know if it decreases mortality at same time. https://newsroom.heart.org/news/8-hour-time-restricted-eating-linked-to-a-91-higher-risk-of-cardiovascular-death https://newsroom.heart.org/news/8-hour-time-restricted-eatin... I think that what is important is to give time for your body everyday to recover from the food intake (which can be an inflammatory insult) and give it time to repair. Maybe some people may reach ketosis in 8h, which is an injury itself. It is like the need to sleep and the need to rest after exercise or the need for vacation after long work days. Every insult needs to be compensated for and repaired. Also the idea of having to eat 3 meals a day, does not exist in nature or in our past history. This developed with industrilization when hard working men needed energy at work. But it is clear that evolution never needed to limit excessive food intake. It mainly dealt with famines and low food intake. We never aquired the necessary breaks to stop eating. we need to keep this in our thoughts daily to actively stop ourselves from eating till our death
mrangle 2y ago
I've been following this research for two decades. In my opinion, the most plausible explanation for the genesis of these life-extending adaptations is the methionine and branch chain amino acid restriction that is incidental to calorie restriction (that would be only cyclical in humans).
tlogan 2y ago
Some studies on humans suggest that ‘moderate obesity’ can reduce lifespan by about 3 years [1] I’m curious if there are any specific studies comparing the longevity of individuals with a BMI lower than 20 versus those with a BMI closer to 30. [1] https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2009-03-18-moderate-obesity-takes-years-life-expectancy https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2009-03-18-moderate-obesity-takes-...
- pessimizer 2y ago
  Association of all-cause mortality with overweight and obesity using standard body mass index categories: a systematic review and meta-analysis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23280227/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23280227/ "Relative to normal weight, both obesity (all grades) and grades 2 and 3 obesity were associated with significantly higher all-cause mortality. Grade 1 obesity overall was not associated with higher mortality, and overweight was associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality." Overweight: BMI from 25 - 29.9. How Much Should We Weigh for a Long and Healthy Life Span? The Need to Reconcile Caloric Restriction versus Longevity with Body Mass Index versus Mortality Data https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115619/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115619/
rafaelmn 2y ago
I thought this research didn't reproduce with primates ?
HumblyTossed 2y ago
I'm not a mouse.
rKarpinski 2y ago
> Weight loss and metabolic improvements do not explain the longevity benefits of severe dietary restrictions. The overlooked word is "Severe". These studies either restrict a lot of calories (40% for one study in the article), or are fasting for long periods of time for the animal; Mice start dying without food after 2 days - you aren't going to see the same effect in humans by skipping breakfast.
begueradj 2y ago
The human body knows how to cope with food scarcity: that's what it's used to since we appeared as a species on Earth. But it does not know how to cope with the abundance of food and energy.
utopicwork 2y ago
I'm someone who is naturally fat. I have spent my whole life trying to lose weight. Many of you here have excluded fat people from your lives so you won't hear this from someone else: you are the weight you are due to factors outside of your control. You can slightly change your weight temporarily but your body will always reset or give you stress signals to reset it yourself. I know, I have starved myself, done incremental weight loss, worked out almost year round as a football player, it doesn't stay off and it barely comes off (10-20 pounds total is insignificant). Fat people shouldn't have to starve themselves to meet societal standards and personally I won't. PS. The reason fat people don't like going to the doctor is because they quite literally will not treat us for our issues in most cases. I've been trying to get treatment for my crippling back pain for years and have been told by physical therapists not to do physical therapy until I'm on pain medication but even with this info doctors just tell me to exercise. I'd love to, in fact I'd love to take walks often but I physically cant.
- bluerooibos 2y ago
  Is it really starving yourself if you're simply given the goal of eating your recommended calorific intake for your height/sex? You wouldn't be starving yourself. You'd just not be overeating.
mmooss 2y ago
The study itself is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08026-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08026-3 It adds this interesting point: Our findings indicate that improving health and extending lifespan are not synonymous and raise questions about which end points are the most relevant for evaluating aging interventions in preclinical models and clinical trials.
himinlomax 2y ago
Gnawing on wood is good for your teeth, study in mice shows why.
zavec 2y ago
Between this and generally trying to lose weight I've been attempting to eat less, but I also find that it tends to make me lethargic and inclined to go to bed earlier. I hope I can find a middle ground between reducing calories but still being able to do as much as I want to in a day.
Yacovlewis 2y ago
This week I actually did a 48 hour fast and then two 24 hour fasts. I ate between all of them, and a lot before. I personally find that hunger comes in waves. If you wait out the first wave, it doesn't continue to build. It will leave and then return, like someone interested in you at a bar. It makes me think that our 3 meals a day culture responds to those initial waves of hunger, and likely leaves of eating more than we need to. Would make sense that there's an overall toll from that on lifespan.
- e40 2y ago
  I do 1.5 meals a deal, but I 100% agree, overeating is really terrible for overall lifespan. How much time between the 48 and 24's? With fasts like that, does the food you eat on resumption matter?
  - Yacovlewis 2y ago
    I did one meal in between. I just make sure to eat a balanced meal (fruit and vegetables, proteins, some healthy carbs, healthy fats). I'm thinking of moving to OMAD (one meal a day). I love eating big meals, and I find it helps my focus to not be thinking about eating during the day. Only challenge is not eating post workout
binary132 2y ago
I really just read that headline as “eating mice leads to a longer life” I’m going back to bed
ags1905 2y ago
I appreciate the work put into this study, but it is not necessary to spend money. Just think of how many fat people you heard of that got past 70. And compare that with the number of people that got to see very long age. Opening a new tab and searching for very old people pictures should clear things up for anyone. For free.

219 points by XzetaU8 2y ago

My husband had PD-5 programme about 4 months ago. he sleeps soundly, works out frequently, and is now very active. It doesn’t make the Parkinson’s go away but it did give him better quality of life. I’m surprised a lot of PWP haven’t heard of it, we got the treatment from binehealthcenter. com

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bubblesnort 2y ago

A TV documentary in 2002 said they studied 2 groups of rats. The control group had a steady supply of food and could eat whenever they want. The other group was on a diet. After 2 years, the control group all sat in a corner of their cage being fat and lazy. The other group continued powering their ferris wheel generators and were not being lazy at all. They hypothesized that too much food made the body more prone to free radicals and the damage was more difficult to repair in the control group. Effectively making them age faster than the diet group.

Plankaluel 2y ago
Not sure a TV documentary from 22 years ago is the source to get scientific explanations from ...
- bubblesnort 2y ago
  TV documentaries today are arguably worse. Dumbed down to "here's someone who knows science stuff" and "here's a startup that does science stuff" over and over again. The point I was trying to make is that many "news" articles aren't really new. It's not unheard of that the publisher just wants your attention so they'll keep rehasing old stuff.
amanaplanacanal 2y ago
I'm pretty sure the free radical theory of aging is not mainstream any more. Too many studies of antioxidants have shown that they don't help, out even make things worse
kelipso 2y ago
Reminds me of the rat park experiment on drug addiction. Put the rats in small cages and give them morphine, they get addicted. Put them in the rat park where they have lots of things to do and they don’t get addicted. Food overindulgence is probably result of similar effects too. This longer life experiment probably has issues too. Like the rats might be getting fed some crappy food in a cage where they can’t do anything and so just sit there and get fat. As opposed to getting not enough food and go into some kind of hibernation stage where they don’t do anything and just sit there and not get fat. What a life for either of these rats. What a life for a human to emulate.

bjornsing 2y ago

Does the study show why (as the title says)? Can’t say I got it…

austinjp 2y ago
Nope. The 'why' in the title is misleading. They suspect some unknown factors but aren't sure what and whether they can be targeted for anti-ageing interventions.

austinjp 2y ago

I can't see a clear conclusion, unfortunately. 'Further study required' as ever. It also seems that 'resilience' to the stress of caloric restriction is key to gaining most benefit but it's not clear exactly what resilience is, and whether it's manipulable. From the article: Weight loss and metabolic improvements do not explain the longevity benefits of severe dietary restrictions. Cutting calories by 40% yielded the longest longevity bump, but intermittent fasting and less severe calorie restriction also increased average lifespan. The dieting mice also displayed favourable metabolic changes, such as reductions in body fat and blood sugar levels. However, the effects of dietary restriction on metabolism and lifespan didn’t always change in lockstep. To the authors’ surprise, the mice that lost the most weight on a calorie-limited diet tended to die younger than did animals that lost relatively modest amounts. This suggests that processes beyond simple metabolic regulation drive how the body responds to limited-calorie regimes. What mattered most for lengthening lifespan were traits related to immune health and red-blood-cell function. Also key was overall resilience [...] The most-resilient animals lost the least weight, maintained immune function and lived longer. In one of the most comprehensive clinical trials of a low-calorie diet in healthy, non-obese individuals, researchers found that the intervention helped to dial down metabolic rates — a short-term effect thought to signal longer-term benefits for lifespan. But the mouse data from Churchill’s team suggest that metabolic measurements might reflect ‘healthspan’ — the period of life spent free from chronic disease and disability — but that other metrics are needed to say whether such ‘anti-ageing’ strategies can truly extend life.

CraftingLinks 2y ago
Mice are very different from humans in that they are prey and we are predator. The reason that this is significant is that evolutionary, mice life history is optimalized for more offspring and shorter life, whereas predators are optimized for long life and few offspring. We know since 1993 with the discovery of the daf-2 gene (a nematode insulin receptor) that genetics can drastically affect longevity. However, and this is my own professional hypothesis, in humans we have tuned the genetic dial to max lifespan, whereas in mice and worms it is not. In these animals there is plenty of flexibility left to tune up lifespan, not so in humans. We may see moderate effects due to increased health though.

xenospn 2y ago

Refuted by every Jewish grandmother ever.

bamboozled 2y ago

Didn't we start living longer as we had access to more and better food...and ate it?

FollowingTheDao 2y ago
You are thinking of Antibiotics.
- bamboozled 2y ago
  No I'm not...
  - FollowingTheDao 2y ago
    Let me rephrase that less sarcastically. More food did not lead to longer lifespan in modern humans. Antibiotics are responsible for increasing human lifespan and estimated 20 years. https://www.antibioticresearch.org.uk/happen-antibiotics-stopped-working/#:~:text=It%20has%20been%20estimated%20that,deafness%20to%20mental%20health%20issues https://www.antibioticresearch.org.uk/happen-antibiotics-sto...
    - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
      I suspect they are taking about the time during which our ancestors evolved into modern humans.
meindnoch 2y ago
We did. But we have overshot a bit.

komali2 2y ago

> "The intervention is a stressor,” Churchill explains. The most-resilient animals lost the least weight, maintained immune function and lived longer. Very happy to hear that my struggles with weight loss are because of my resilience and a strong indicator that I will live a long life ;)

tomp 2y ago

“Intermittent fasting and/or caloric restriction extends mice lifespan.” is quite old news. The reason mice are used in labs isn’t because they’re a good model of humans, but because they’re easy to bread and have short lifespans. Studies of caloric restriction in monkeys didn’t cause lifespan extension, casting doubt on its effect in humans. Peter Attia (best source of longevity science) wrote about this 5 years ago. https://peterattiamd.com/calorie-restriction-part-iia-monkey-studies/ https://peterattiamd.com/calorie-restriction-part-iia-monkey...

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8b16380d 2y ago
Mmmmmmm mouse bread
- doubled112 2y ago
  I read it more like a mouse sandwich. I don’t think there’s much meat on a mouse though, especially when the experiment is to have them eat less.
- riehwvfbk 2y ago
  No, the GP is referring to breaded mice. Indeed, the recipe is so easy. Dip mice in batter and deep fry.
scotty79 2y ago
Interesting question is why it didn't work for monkeys. It might have been a difference in protocol. Studies on monkey's are not easy to repeat. Somebody should test caloric restrictions on mice with explicit goal of making it not work.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

okr 2y ago

But do not stop eating. My advice.

macrolime 2y ago

Could be the reason is aging is programmed and when food is scarce the program changes to delay aging, such that the organism has a better chance to survive longer and reproduce once food is less scarce and at that point turn up the rate of aging again.

0x1ceb00da 2y ago
Or that extra foods puts more stress on your organs. Liver, kidneys, pancrease, etc have to do more work and for some reason the body isn't able to repair that and they wear out quicker.
- 0x1ceb00da 2y ago
  Some googling suggests this is what causes type 2 diabetes. Pancreas wears out and stops producing insulin.
  - chriscappuccio 2y ago
    After chronic insulin resistance causes higher amounts of insulin to be generated for long periods of time
  - nradov 2y ago
    And that's why you shouldn't rely on Google for anything important. Type-2 diabetes has more to do with insulin resistance than lack of insulin production.
- exceptione 2y ago
  All tissue in organs are under stress and cells die of. That is normal, also for young people. The body produces new cell by making copies of dna. What is problematic however is that after some time, there is a built up of errors in the dna. If those errors do not get corrected, that is when you see a decline in organ quality, what we call aging. If interested, see my other posts for more pointers.
exceptione 2y ago

belter 2y ago

The money shot: "...But other factors — including immune health, genetics and physiological indicators of resiliency — seem to better explain the link between cutting calories and increased lifespan..."

SoftTalker 2y ago
Anecdotally, every chronically sick person (always getting colds, coughs, sinus infections, headaches, UTIs, other symptoms) I know is overweight. This doesn't show causation, maybe having a weak immune system contributes to being hungry and overeating but all the normal weight or lean people I know seem to rarely be sick.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  Knowing nothing about your surroundings, overweight people tend to avoid medical care if they can bare with the symptoms, which make them more subject to longer colds, infections, headaches etc. It's a well known effect: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381543/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381543/
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    I wonder if the same is/was true for smokers? I can imagine people not wanting to hear "you need to lose weight" every time they visit the doctor. What about "you need to stop smoking" or "you need to stop drinking" or admonishments to stop any other self-destructive behaviors?
    - makeitdouble 2y ago
      Yes, there's probably a similar effect, with a key difference being that smoking and drinking can be masked a bit easier if it's not an emergency (e.g. sobering for a day before going in) where there's no lying about one's weight.
  - nradov 2y ago
    That doesn't make any sense. Medical care can't really reduce the length of common cold symptoms. It mostly comes down to the effectiveness of your own immune system. Obesity has a number of negative effects on the immune system.

exceptione 2y ago

There is an interview [0] with Hoeijmakers, who has championed the idea that the single root cause for both aging and cancer are faults in dna. Faults in dna prevent rna copies, aka _transcription stress_. One of his theses was that if faults in dna happen randomly, we would see aging the most in the largest genes. [1] In his experiments [2] he was able to turn the knob of dna repair, also in humans, from "organism growth" to "organism survival". Survival mode can be induced when confronted with food scarcity. If we can unravel the underlying mechanism, we should be able to enlarge our lifespan. ___ 0. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2024/10/11/de-geneticus-die-gezond-103-wil-worden-a4868753 https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2024/10/11/de-geneticus-die-gezond... 1. https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0168-9525%2824%2900027-1 https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0168-9525%2824%2900... 2. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19329 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19329

zagrebian 2y ago
There was a Veritasium video about these two modes. Survival mode is triggered not just by food scarcity, but also by extreme heat, extreme cold, and one other thing (I forgot).
FollowingTheDao 2y ago
The single greatest contributor to DNA damage is oxidative stress. For example: https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/19/11664 https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/19/11664
- exceptione 2y ago
  Hoeijmakers mentions that. Fasting activates anti-oxidants. For example, in the Netherlands hospitals are starting to experiment with fasting before a surgery. During surgery arteries arteries are opened, bringing blood in contact with oxygen. With pre activated anti-oxidants damage will be minimized, helping with recovery.

thenerdhead 2y ago

We are slowly learning that our immune system is the key to longevity. Many articles these last few years on ways to renew it, ways to treat dysfunction, and the common bad guys we really need to remove from our bodies as they are directly linked to currently incurable diseases like T1D, MS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ME/CFS, Long COVID, and more. It seems very realistic we may cure/reverse disease course for a handful of these within the next decade at this rate. Many novel clinical trials are happening to probe at the causes and if proven, we could have new drugs quickly due to the pandemic forcing supply chains to be able to meet antigen targets.

voisin 2y ago
> the common bad guys we really need to remove from our bodies Can you elaborate?
- thenerdhead 2y ago
  Over the last four years we have made tremendous progress in identifying pathogenic antigens as the main culprit in these diseases. Some may be caused by undetected low grade chronic infections and some may be lingering antigens causing constant immune system activation / dysfunction.
aashu_dwivedi 2y ago
can you elaborate what are the medical trials which are going on for this?
- DJBunnies 2y ago
  I’m skeptical it has basis in medicine, but I’m here to see too.
- thenerdhead 2y ago
  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-024-01911-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-024-01911-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41531-024-00716-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41531-024-00716-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00470-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00470-5 https://www.science.org/content/article/long-covid-trials-aim-clear-lingering-virus-help-patients-need https://www.science.org/content/article/long-covid-trials-ai... https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=54970 https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=54970 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00871-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00871-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01274-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01274-3 https://www.fda.gov/drugs/news-events-human-drugs/fda-approves-treatment-adults-alzheimers-disease https://www.fda.gov/drugs/news-events-human-drugs/fda-approv... Immunotherapy is entering the golden age and we're about to find out what and what doesn't work.

sukhavati 2y ago

Caloric restriction (CR) leading to longer lifespan doesn’t generalize, including rhesus monkeys [1]. Moreover, across various species there seems to be negative correlation between average lifespan and effectiveness of CR and lifespan extension [2]. [1] https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1844282914521096501 https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1844282914521096501 [2] https://x.com/powerfultakes/status/1844310815819931661 https://x.com/powerfultakes/status/1844310815819931661

MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
Crémieux is fantastic, highly recommended.

Horffupolde 2y ago

Fasting is widespread in religions. Can’t be a coïncidence.

scotty79 2y ago
It's more likely because hunger was a common human experience for entire history so doing it on purpose seems like a quirky, hip thing to do and that's what religions flock to for the purposes of attracting followers.
senectus1 2y ago
So is wearing funny hats, and performing acts of violence on opposing believers and unbelievers (not to mention their own believers). I wouldn't put too much "faith" in religions authority on whats correct or not. Also, absolutely it can be a coincidance. Your standards for truth are very poor.
- wiml 2y ago
  I am currently seeking funding for my research into the longevity effects of wearing funny hats. Previous research on organ-grinder monkeys has been ambiguous and it's hard to get IRB approval. My lab is currently developing tiny hats for fruit flies and investigating what a fruit fly finds funny.
swayvil 2y ago
Fasting gets you high. Bundles well with meditation, sleep-deprivation, etc. (which leads to "religious visions" etc)
spcebar 2y ago
I think religious fasting is more about the symbolic significance of fasting as an act of self denial and self cleansing, but there are plenty of religious dietary restrictions in religions that probably stem from ideas about health and food safety.
- kamaal 2y ago

scotty79 2y ago

I'm doing 24h breaks between 24h eating periods because I was slightly overweight. I lost 10lbs in less than 2 months without any additional restrictions or exercise. I noticed no side effects. It's also super easy to keep up esp. when compared with my previous attempt at restricting sugary snacks. 'When' is so much easier to manage than 'what'. If I feel hungry I just need to distract myself for few hours and it's fine.

kadomony 2y ago
Wait, so you're just not eating every other day?
- wileydragonfly 2y ago
  Anorexia works!
  - scotty79 2y ago
    Wow. Losing weight by not eating apparently is not the correct, moral way to do it either. That's a kind of shaming that even Ozempic patients don't get. Apparently the only moral way is to struggle with terrible exertion and discomfort and mostly fail but sometimes succeed. Only then you earned joining the club of people with healthy, normal weight.
  - formerly_proven 2y ago
    This is probably the dumbest comment I've seen on HN regarding weight loss so far, and that's really saying something considering the recent Ozempic thread.
  - smolder 2y ago
    Anorexia is when people starve themselves to an unhealthy degree based on mental issues, body dysmorphia, something like that. Someone intermittent fasting to lose excess weight and having success at it isn't the same.
    - 2y ago

ck2 2y ago

Every single longevity (life extension) supplement or drug or technique that I've ever looked at involves pushing the person DOWN to a baseline Which means even if they work to give you more years, you will lose fitness. It is physically impossible to be held down to baseline and yet achieve stress-adaptation from exercise. Everything from NAD+ supplementation to metformin to fasting, they all push your metabolism and other bodily function to an idle state. It is useless, you'll live longer but you will be feeble.

bratwurst3000 2y ago
i thought about this also but then there is this recent science that the body of a office worker uses the same calories as someone doing body work. saw it on kurzgesagt. so by this theory humans should be very energetic even with only the baseline
- ck2 2y ago
  I only burn 80 calories when running a 7 minute mile but the average person uses a lot more if they are untrained. The office-worker uses the same calories as a workout because they have no fitness and their heartrate is sky high even at idle.
  - squidgedcricket 2y ago
    Is heart rate directly proportional to calories burned?
FollowingTheDao 2y ago
Yes, there is a balance. IF you think of your body like a car it can make sense. The more you drive your car the faster it will wear down. Not driving your car can help it last a long time but it is useless. But driving it to much and too fast will wear it down before its' time. Drive your car when you need to, but not too fast. And make sure you give it good gas and take care of the fluids and maintenance. And live knowing that everything is impermanent and one day your car will be gone.

elwebmaster 2y ago

There is just one “little” problem which remains unsolved: how to make money while “not selling” calories? It’s easy to make money by selling more calories: you add sugars, artificial compounds leading to mental addiction, you invest in heavy marketing and expansive distribution channels. All of this makes your product available and desirable, a money printing machine, at the cost of society’s health and wellbeing. So until someone can answer the question of how to do the same without the side effect to society, unfortunately the majority will continue to suffer for the benefit of the very few.

wildrhythms 2y ago
Who is 'you'?
- elwebmaster 2y ago
  You is the processed food industry.
apwell23 2y ago
Its a way for us to winnow out the weak willed
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  It would be just as true but much funnier if you said "sinners".
Balgair 2y ago
The old adage here applies: "How do you sell ice to Eskimos? You call it French ice." Same kinda thing. You call the net-negative calories: French calories or some other crap like that.
kelipso 2y ago
There is no particular need for society to have an industry that sells unhealthy food. It can go the way of horses, would only be a net positive for society.

jebarker 2y ago

If you do intermittent fasting you won't necessarily live longer, but it will feel much longer.

aherforth 2y ago
I laughed at this
penguin_booze 2y ago
Only initially. After a while, hunger and craving feel less of an emergency, and blends into the background, like breathing is--you tend to notice it's happening occasionally, but then go meh.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  I believe that's the secret effectiveness of intermittent fasting. It teaches people who have a panic response when they feel the faintest bit of hunger how to wait, and over a long period of time kills that panic response. I started IF probably around 2014 at 215 lbs (6'), and dropped about a pound a week for 6 months of it, leaving me at probably 185. Over the next year, I went back up to maybe 205, then did another six months and got down to 180. This happened probably twice more, and by 2020 my weight had reset to 170-175. By reset, I mean that since 2020, I've paid absolutely no attention to my weight, or the amount I eat (although the variety is important.) I'm always between 169-176. At this second, I am 171.4 lbs. I think intermittent fasting taught me to be that way. Learning that you're not going to die if you don't eat for the rest of the day is like learning a language. It's recalibrating your own instinct for homeostasis, which is the characteristic intrinsic urge that all living beings have. It resists tampering, and really has to be convinced over time.
KolmogorovComp 2y ago
Thank you for this, the only result that does not need more studies to be proven.

black_13 2y ago

[dead]

Zamicol 2y ago

The title is misleading. This is not true in more complex animals like humans. https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1844282914521096501 https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1844282914521096501

avazhi 2y ago

I love how neither this Nature article nor the actual study shed any new light on this area. We've known about this for decades; we've also known that it isn't just down to metabolic rate changes for... decades.

mikesabbagh 2y ago

there are new reportsin humans that intermittent fasting doubles your rate of heart disease. I am curious to know if it decreases mortality at same time. https://newsroom.heart.org/news/8-hour-time-restricted-eating-linked-to-a-91-higher-risk-of-cardiovascular-death https://newsroom.heart.org/news/8-hour-time-restricted-eatin... I think that what is important is to give time for your body everyday to recover from the food intake (which can be an inflammatory insult) and give it time to repair. Maybe some people may reach ketosis in 8h, which is an injury itself. It is like the need to sleep and the need to rest after exercise or the need for vacation after long work days. Every insult needs to be compensated for and repaired. Also the idea of having to eat 3 meals a day, does not exist in nature or in our past history. This developed with industrilization when hard working men needed energy at work. But it is clear that evolution never needed to limit excessive food intake. It mainly dealt with famines and low food intake. We never aquired the necessary breaks to stop eating. we need to keep this in our thoughts daily to actively stop ourselves from eating till our death

mrangle 2y ago

I've been following this research for two decades. In my opinion, the most plausible explanation for the genesis of these life-extending adaptations is the methionine and branch chain amino acid restriction that is incidental to calorie restriction (that would be only cyclical in humans).

tlogan 2y ago

Some studies on humans suggest that ‘moderate obesity’ can reduce lifespan by about 3 years [1] I’m curious if there are any specific studies comparing the longevity of individuals with a BMI lower than 20 versus those with a BMI closer to 30. [1] https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2009-03-18-moderate-obesity-takes-years-life-expectancy https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2009-03-18-moderate-obesity-takes-...

pessimizer 2y ago
Association of all-cause mortality with overweight and obesity using standard body mass index categories: a systematic review and meta-analysis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23280227/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23280227/ "Relative to normal weight, both obesity (all grades) and grades 2 and 3 obesity were associated with significantly higher all-cause mortality. Grade 1 obesity overall was not associated with higher mortality, and overweight was associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality." Overweight: BMI from 25 - 29.9. How Much Should We Weigh for a Long and Healthy Life Span? The Need to Reconcile Caloric Restriction versus Longevity with Body Mass Index versus Mortality Data https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115619/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115619/

rafaelmn 2y ago

I thought this research didn't reproduce with primates ?

HumblyTossed 2y ago

I'm not a mouse.

rKarpinski 2y ago

> Weight loss and metabolic improvements do not explain the longevity benefits of severe dietary restrictions. The overlooked word is "Severe". These studies either restrict a lot of calories (40% for one study in the article), or are fasting for long periods of time for the animal; Mice start dying without food after 2 days - you aren't going to see the same effect in humans by skipping breakfast.

begueradj 2y ago

The human body knows how to cope with food scarcity: that's what it's used to since we appeared as a species on Earth. But it does not know how to cope with the abundance of food and energy.

utopicwork 2y ago

I'm someone who is naturally fat. I have spent my whole life trying to lose weight. Many of you here have excluded fat people from your lives so you won't hear this from someone else: you are the weight you are due to factors outside of your control. You can slightly change your weight temporarily but your body will always reset or give you stress signals to reset it yourself. I know, I have starved myself, done incremental weight loss, worked out almost year round as a football player, it doesn't stay off and it barely comes off (10-20 pounds total is insignificant). Fat people shouldn't have to starve themselves to meet societal standards and personally I won't. PS. The reason fat people don't like going to the doctor is because they quite literally will not treat us for our issues in most cases. I've been trying to get treatment for my crippling back pain for years and have been told by physical therapists not to do physical therapy until I'm on pain medication but even with this info doctors just tell me to exercise. I'd love to, in fact I'd love to take walks often but I physically cant.

bluerooibos 2y ago
Is it really starving yourself if you're simply given the goal of eating your recommended calorific intake for your height/sex? You wouldn't be starving yourself. You'd just not be overeating.

mmooss 2y ago

The study itself is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08026-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08026-3 It adds this interesting point: Our findings indicate that improving health and extending lifespan are not synonymous and raise questions about which end points are the most relevant for evaluating aging interventions in preclinical models and clinical trials.

himinlomax 2y ago

Gnawing on wood is good for your teeth, study in mice shows why.

zavec 2y ago

Between this and generally trying to lose weight I've been attempting to eat less, but I also find that it tends to make me lethargic and inclined to go to bed earlier. I hope I can find a middle ground between reducing calories but still being able to do as much as I want to in a day.

Yacovlewis 2y ago

This week I actually did a 48 hour fast and then two 24 hour fasts. I ate between all of them, and a lot before. I personally find that hunger comes in waves. If you wait out the first wave, it doesn't continue to build. It will leave and then return, like someone interested in you at a bar. It makes me think that our 3 meals a day culture responds to those initial waves of hunger, and likely leaves of eating more than we need to. Would make sense that there's an overall toll from that on lifespan.

e40 2y ago
I do 1.5 meals a deal, but I 100% agree, overeating is really terrible for overall lifespan. How much time between the 48 and 24's? With fasts like that, does the food you eat on resumption matter?
- Yacovlewis 2y ago
  I did one meal in between. I just make sure to eat a balanced meal (fruit and vegetables, proteins, some healthy carbs, healthy fats). I'm thinking of moving to OMAD (one meal a day). I love eating big meals, and I find it helps my focus to not be thinking about eating during the day. Only challenge is not eating post workout

binary132 2y ago

I really just read that headline as “eating mice leads to a longer life” I’m going back to bed

ags1905 2y ago

I appreciate the work put into this study, but it is not necessary to spend money. Just think of how many fat people you heard of that got past 70. And compare that with the number of people that got to see very long age. Opening a new tab and searching for very old people pictures should clear things up for anyone. For free.