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Health Puzzles
- There is no doubt whatsoever about the healthiest diet in the world. It's Calorie Restriction (Eating 20+% fewer calories than you naturally would, but with good nutrition). CR is all but certain to not only keep you healthy, but slow aging as well. In darn near every creature tried, including monkeys, CR has massively extended lifespans. In controlled trials, female rats on CR diets were able to have babies after ALL (!!!) the rats not on such a CR diet were dead of old age. Biosphere 2 gave further credence to the idea, when checking biological age-markers of the accidentally CR'd participants.
- However, folks who are moderately overweight (according to BMI calculations) live, on average, notably longer than folks who are "normal weight", underweight, obese, or super-obese.
- Alcohol causes cirrhosis of the liver. And several types of cancer(Esophogal & others) .
- However, Heavy drinkers live longer than teetotalers like myself. Moderate drinkers live the longest.
- However, Mormons and 7th Day Adventists live extra-long on a drink-free life.
Posts
4 comments:
CR is certainly an unwelcome gospel.
I wonder how it impacts productivity and energy? All I got from the study abstract was that they maintained "high mental and physical energy." So they're not claiming it increased energy.
I'm looking to burn brighter, not longer.
- Joseph B
One thing I've never found from CR studies is what the baseline feeding rate means in terms of humans.
If the baseline or control group of rats "eat as much as they want", are we talking Michael Phelps or Oprah? If the control rats are more towards the Oprah end of the scale then
1. Duh!
2. We already knew that sitting on your butt all day stuffing your face was bad for you.
3. This means that the average healthy person is already at the "hunger" level of the CR rats, and that going beyond that into true underfeeding will give the BMI results you list.
However, and this applies to the alcohol results too, there is another possible interpretation of the BMI (and alcohol) results.
If we take the average population, they have an average BMI. Those who are below average, and especially those much below, will include a group of people who are sick. Cancer, AIDS, various other illnesses all cause weight loss.
Even those who are fat often have much less muscle mass than the truly healthy, and so weigh less. The Skinny-fat syndrome.
So on average, those people who are much lighter than average are less healthy than those who are not. Hence less lifespan.
The % of the very light who get that way through exercise and good, nutritious but low calorie diet is probably too small to affect the statistics.
Likewise, in the general population (in modern, western society), a great deal of those who drink zero alcohol (and identify as such) will be those who cannot drink for health reasons. Not the healthiest group.
Dr. Pat,
My CR friends give precisely that rationale (already sick) for largely ignoring the mild overweight benefits stuff.
OTOH, the CR studies conveniently ignore some number of early deaths, IIRC. And I think the "eat as much as you want" rats are closer to Dick Cheney than either Oprah or Phelps.
The line on CR is that taking your base natural body-weight stabilizing weight, and dropping 20-30% is tremendously valuable to you.
My hypothesis is a little fat gives you a buffer if things go wrong, and things go wrong a lot as you get older. Therefore the fat-buffer prevents death from oops, while CR prevents death from old age.
On alcohol...I'm leaning towards a fermented foods hypothesis, but I personally hate the stuff (tastes like dirty socks smell) and so haven't chased it much.
Very interesting observations, DrPat, once again underlining that animal studies are often flawed by the cages they're conducted in, and human correlations are fraught with multivariable causations and often point opposite to their superficial indications.
I'm just not seeing CR's applicability for someone on an all meat, much less all fish, diet. The way I boil the fish, digestion is super easy. I hardly dump at all. I can't see digestion taking up a lot of energy for me.
Yes I can see starvation-activated hibernation slowing aging, along with everything else, but this isn't a result I'm interested in experiencing.
Unless someone can come up with a GOOD study, that controls for the problems mentioned in the first paragraph, I'll remain skeptical of the CR cost-benefit ratio.
Interestingly, fat cycling may be a method of calorie restriction. The body cannot digest protein without fat. By cycling the fat intake, is one also cycling protein conversion to calories? If so this is a very easy way to fast intermittently.
I don't know, but to me cycling fat once or twice every 24 hours just feels right. I go by feeling much more than studies and science these days. The studies are there just to spark testable suggestions. Ultimately, doing a controlled variation in one's own diet is a more sensitive test, and therefore better science, than some government funded researcher collecting variables across a large population or experimenting on animals in an unnatural caged environment.
I'm also skeptical of CR advocates. Since it involves such a challenge and act of willpower, there will be a strong confirmation bias and sunk cost bias and placebo effect at work.
Also, I'm a lean freakin machine as it is, but with muscle. I can't see CR adding anything to my physique. As Fezziq would say, I don't even exercise.
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