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Cut
down on calories to live a long life
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Cutting down on
calories can not only make you live up to 100 years but also keep you healthy
throughout life, research shows.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis (WUSM-SL),
University College London (UCL), and Andrus Gerontology Centre, University of
Southern California (USC) report that calorie restriction influences the same
handful of molecular pathways related to ageing in all the organisms studied --
from yeast to rodents to humans.
In less complex organisms, restricting calories can double or even triple
lifespan. It's not yet clear just how much longer calorie restriction might help
humans live, but those who practice the strict diet may hope to survive past 100
years, according to the study.
Study co-author Luigi Fontana is less interested in calorie restriction for
longer life than in its ability to promote good health throughout life.
"The focus of my research is not really to extend lifespan to 120 or 130 years,"
said Fontana, research associate professor of medicine at WUSM-SL and
investigator at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome, Italy.
"Right now, the average lifespan in Western countries is about 80, but there are
too many people who are only healthy until about age 50," he said.
"We want to use the discoveries about calorie restriction and other related
genetic or pharmacological interventions to close that 30-year gap between
lifespan and 'healthspan'," Fontana said.
"However, by extending a healthy lifestyle, average lifespan could increase up
to 100 years of age," he added.
Fontana and co-authors write about how cutting calorie intake between 10 per
cent and 50 per cent decreases the activity of pathways involving insulin-like
growth factor (IGF-1), glucose and TOR (target of rapamycin), and considerably
increases lifespan in animals.
"About 30 per cent of the animals on calorie restriction die at an advanced age
without any diseases normally related to ageing (such as cancer, cardiovascular
disease and cognitive problems)," Fontana says, according to a WUSM-SL release.
Unfortunately, many humans are moving in the opposite direction. As obesity
reaches epidemic rates in Western countries, Fontana said rather than closing
the 30-year gap between 'healthspan' and lifespan, the gap is likely to grow.
The findings were published in the Friday edition of
Science .
-IANS / Times of India
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