7 ms·

The authors disclosed they have equity in a company called L-Nutra, which intends to sell diet food packs: http://www.l-nutra.com/index.php/products/prolon htt

The authors disclosed they have equity in a company called L-Nutra, which intends to sell diet food packs: http://www.l-nutra.com/index.php/products/prolon http://www.l-nutra.com/index.php/products/prolon Nothing for sale yet, but hopefully the price will be competitive with do-it-yourselfers. I am cautiously optimistic about this direction.

Avshalom 11y ago
it is going to be very hard to be price-competitive with "not eating"
- primroot 11y ago
  just sell the test kits for all the supposed markers of longevity.
- hoodoof 11y ago
  Perhaps. I remember when bottled water became a big thing. I thought "What the? This is stupid, choice between free at the tap or buying a bottle of water? This will never work."
  - fineline 11y ago
    If you have kids check out The Lorax movie where the two marketing dudes are pitching the ad for bottled air.
jdnier 11y ago
As to what it is: "Prolon™1 and 2 are proprietary, solely plant-based products, comprised of vegetable medleys, broths, energy drinks, teas, and nutrition bars." So, it's a limited, plant-based diet you follow at intervals. I wonder if adopting a full-time plant-based diet would have similar effects, but without the caloric restriction.
Splendor 11y ago
That's interesting. Thanks for sharing.
alecco 11y ago
Ah, this gets me extremely suspicious until there's independent verification.
- chaz72 11y ago
  If it can't be independently verified, it can't be called science, no matter how promising the study is when they run it.
  - cag_ii 11y ago
    Why do you think it can't be independently verified? There is a link elsewhere in this thread to the related patent application which I would think contains enough info to verify.
    - chaz72 11y ago
      Well, to be fair, I have no idea. I saw some reference here in the comments that there was not enough data for someone to replicate it. I saw some other reference here in the comments that they are going to sell diet packs and have a commercial interest. That's not really enough to draw a conclusion, is it? Thing is, it isn't my intent to draw a conclusion. Merely to say that if they do not make it reproducible and testable by another team, then all the studies and data in the world do not qualify as science.
  - evincarofautumn 11y ago
    Inversely, if it can be independently verified, it can be called science, no matter how suspect they are.
    - chaz72 11y ago
      Exactly so.
- mojoe 11y ago
  You are probably talking specifically about the four day diet cycle referenced in this article, but I want to point out that there are already many, many studies supporting the link between calorie restriction and slow aging -- this literature review has links to many peer-reviewed papers: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/361 http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/361
drumdance 11y ago
That page has an exceedingly high ratio of TM superscript.
windlep 11y ago
I'd love to see this study replicated, only instead of "proprietary (expensive?) product", it was just 40% of your daily caloric intake.... in soylent. There's been multiple studies I've seen now indicating that fasting does this, the questions I want to know are: 1. How much of a caloric intake drop is required? 2. How much does it matter what specific types of calories are used for the lower-calorie period? (ie, 500 cals of fast-food vs. soylent vs. prolon vs. ensure) 3. Is there any tell-tale sign we can test for indicating when a sufficient 'period' has occurred for the benefits, thus knowing we can resume normal diet? I can only imagine if these scientists are associated with a specific product, they probably don't have a huge reason to find out if a cheap existing product (soylent/ensure) works just as well as their most-likely-more-expensive-proprietary one. But it's the first thing I want to know.
- _pius 11y ago
  I'd love to see this study replicated, only instead of "proprietary (expensive?) product", it was just 40% of your daily caloric intake.... in soylent. Why? Soylent's just another proprietary product.
  - windlep 11y ago
    Soylent open-sourced their recipe afaik, that was part of the whole appeal for many, they could replicate the entire formula and tweak as desired. There's other food-replacements as well, like ensure, which I cited. Edit: Soylent has an entire forum of various varients of their recipe: https://diy.soylent.com/recipes https://diy.soylent.com/recipes
    - vlaube 11y ago
      You can also automatically generate recipes using auto-soylent: https://github.com/nick/auto-soylent https://github.com/nick/auto-soylent The nutrient profile can be taken from the patent.
- tkyjonathan 11y ago
  There was a 10 year study that concluded this year that vitamins pills don't help with cancer and heart disease. The quality of delivery of vitamins to the body is important and based on this study, I don't think soylent is a good long term solution for overall health - unless you eat it with fruit and vegetables.
shanev 11y ago
An easy way to fast frequently is to just skip breakfast everyday. Then you automatically get a 16+ hour fast and keep your eating to a short window during the day. This helps kick in autophagy [1], a process whereby our cells repair themselves; a garbage collector for our body if you will. This is most likely the process the scientists are observing as slowed down aging. It's not really a foreign topic as there's 397 published papers on autophagy on PubMed. No fancy hyphenated diet products needed. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy
- fsloth 11y ago
  Oh cool, I love your hypothesis. Based on science, easy to implement. I definetly have to test this.
  - erkkie 11y ago
    There's lots of studies behind intermittent fasting and there definitely seems to be an effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting
    - smorrow 11y ago
      In the case cancer, I heard the reason it's good is that the cancer cells die off faster than the normal ones do, when they're not being fed.
- erkkie 11y ago
  Most of this and related studies seem to tie back to insulin one way or the other (the article mentioned IGF1, many of the autophagy studies mention the process only happening with low insulin levels eg http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(10)00159-2 http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(10)0...). It would stand to reason managing meal glygemic index would be important (naturally fasting lowers insulin, presumably so would low glygemic index diets)
- hliyan 11y ago
tallon 11y ago
"V.D.L. and T.E.M. have equity interest in L-Nutra, a company that develops medical food. 100% of the L-Nutra equity belonging to V.D.L. will be donated to non-profit organizations. Neither author had any role in data analysis." from the paper. VDL is the PI though.

Avshalom 11y ago

it is going to be very hard to be price-competitive with "not eating"

primroot 11y ago
just sell the test kits for all the supposed markers of longevity.
hoodoof 11y ago
Perhaps. I remember when bottled water became a big thing. I thought "What the? This is stupid, choice between free at the tap or buying a bottle of water? This will never work."
- fineline 11y ago
  If you have kids check out The Lorax movie where the two marketing dudes are pitching the ad for bottled air.

jdnier 11y ago

As to what it is: "Prolon™1 and 2 are proprietary, solely plant-based products, comprised of vegetable medleys, broths, energy drinks, teas, and nutrition bars." So, it's a limited, plant-based diet you follow at intervals. I wonder if adopting a full-time plant-based diet would have similar effects, but without the caloric restriction.

Splendor 11y ago

That's interesting. Thanks for sharing.

alecco 11y ago

Ah, this gets me extremely suspicious until there's independent verification.

chaz72 11y ago
If it can't be independently verified, it can't be called science, no matter how promising the study is when they run it.
- cag_ii 11y ago
  Why do you think it can't be independently verified? There is a link elsewhere in this thread to the related patent application which I would think contains enough info to verify.
  - chaz72 11y ago
    Well, to be fair, I have no idea. I saw some reference here in the comments that there was not enough data for someone to replicate it. I saw some other reference here in the comments that they are going to sell diet packs and have a commercial interest. That's not really enough to draw a conclusion, is it? Thing is, it isn't my intent to draw a conclusion. Merely to say that if they do not make it reproducible and testable by another team, then all the studies and data in the world do not qualify as science.
- evincarofautumn 11y ago
  Inversely, if it can be independently verified, it can be called science, no matter how suspect they are.
  - chaz72 11y ago
    Exactly so.
mojoe 11y ago
You are probably talking specifically about the four day diet cycle referenced in this article, but I want to point out that there are already many, many studies supporting the link between calorie restriction and slow aging -- this literature review has links to many peer-reviewed papers: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/361 http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/361

drumdance 11y ago

That page has an exceedingly high ratio of TM superscript.

windlep 11y ago

I'd love to see this study replicated, only instead of "proprietary (expensive?) product", it was just 40% of your daily caloric intake.... in soylent. There's been multiple studies I've seen now indicating that fasting does this, the questions I want to know are: 1. How much of a caloric intake drop is required? 2. How much does it matter what specific types of calories are used for the lower-calorie period? (ie, 500 cals of fast-food vs. soylent vs. prolon vs. ensure) 3. Is there any tell-tale sign we can test for indicating when a sufficient 'period' has occurred for the benefits, thus knowing we can resume normal diet? I can only imagine if these scientists are associated with a specific product, they probably don't have a huge reason to find out if a cheap existing product (soylent/ensure) works just as well as their most-likely-more-expensive-proprietary one. But it's the first thing I want to know.

_pius 11y ago
I'd love to see this study replicated, only instead of "proprietary (expensive?) product", it was just 40% of your daily caloric intake.... in soylent. Why? Soylent's just another proprietary product.
- windlep 11y ago
  Soylent open-sourced their recipe afaik, that was part of the whole appeal for many, they could replicate the entire formula and tweak as desired. There's other food-replacements as well, like ensure, which I cited. Edit: Soylent has an entire forum of various varients of their recipe: https://diy.soylent.com/recipes https://diy.soylent.com/recipes
  - vlaube 11y ago
    You can also automatically generate recipes using auto-soylent: https://github.com/nick/auto-soylent https://github.com/nick/auto-soylent The nutrient profile can be taken from the patent.
tkyjonathan 11y ago
There was a 10 year study that concluded this year that vitamins pills don't help with cancer and heart disease. The quality of delivery of vitamins to the body is important and based on this study, I don't think soylent is a good long term solution for overall health - unless you eat it with fruit and vegetables.

shanev 11y ago

An easy way to fast frequently is to just skip breakfast everyday. Then you automatically get a 16+ hour fast and keep your eating to a short window during the day. This helps kick in autophagy [1], a process whereby our cells repair themselves; a garbage collector for our body if you will. This is most likely the process the scientists are observing as slowed down aging. It's not really a foreign topic as there's 397 published papers on autophagy on PubMed. No fancy hyphenated diet products needed. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy

fsloth 11y ago
Oh cool, I love your hypothesis. Based on science, easy to implement. I definetly have to test this.
- erkkie 11y ago
  There's lots of studies behind intermittent fasting and there definitely seems to be an effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting
  - smorrow 11y ago
    In the case cancer, I heard the reason it's good is that the cancer cells die off faster than the normal ones do, when they're not being fed.
erkkie 11y ago
Most of this and related studies seem to tie back to insulin one way or the other (the article mentioned IGF1, many of the autophagy studies mention the process only happening with low insulin levels eg http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(10)00159-2 http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(10)0...). It would stand to reason managing meal glygemic index would be important (naturally fasting lowers insulin, presumably so would low glygemic index diets)
hliyan 11y ago

tallon 11y ago

"V.D.L. and T.E.M. have equity interest in L-Nutra, a company that develops medical food. 100% of the L-Nutra equity belonging to V.D.L. will be donated to non-profit organizations. Neither author had any role in data analysis." from the paper. VDL is the PI though.