CALORIE RESTRICTION: GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH?

By restricting your intake of calories, it may be possible to improve your health and live longer.  The people of Okinawa practice calorie restriction (CR) and are amongst the longest living people in the world.  We’re not talking starvation diets here, but a healthy, nutritious diet, low in calories.

Mild calorie restriction diet appears to have enormous health benefits

Back in the 1930’s, researchers found that rats and mice kept on a low calorie, healthy diet lived twice as long as expected.  Concrete evidence is hard to come by as research on primates and humans is ongoing.  However, one study of a group of 50 year olds in the USA found that their blood pressure readings were what you would expect in your average 20 year old!   Following a healthy CR  diet would protect you from many of the diseases we now face in the Western world: high cholesterol, diabetes type 2, high blood pressure, heart disease and some cancers.

Another study suggests that slowing the ageing process could have something to do with the hormone T3, involved in thyroid function which regulates metabolism, and tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF), an inflammatory molecule.   In an experiment involving 3 group of people – 1) CR, 2) Western diet and 3) Western diet and endurance training  – only in the CR group did researchers find lower levels of T3.  In previous experiments, amimals with low levels of T3 and TNF seemed to live 50% longer.

Two other hormones apparently involved in the ageing process are melatonin (plays a role in sleep patterns) and DHEAs (plays a role in the production of testosterone in men and women).  Food restriction increases the production of melatonin which inhibits the production of DHEA.  Reducing the production of DHEA extends the usable life span of production of DHEA by the adrenals.

Low body weight can affect reproduction but studies in rats show that this was found only in severe CR regimens.  Where CR is very strict – say around 40% reduction in recommended daily calorie allowance, rats and mice were 50% smaller in adulthood!   So if you imagine a person who would ordinarily weigh around 63kgs/10st weighing in at 32kgs/5st!  Reproduction was also affected at these levels.

In conclusion, a mild CR diet which is nutritionally sound seems to bring enormous health benefits, but research has only scratched the surface of this fascinating subject.

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