Drastic diet may extend human life, study finds

Nov. 15, 2007
Special to World Science

From this article, I felt that there is a possibility that drastic diet may extend human life.

Though researchers knew it worked on animals, but whether we would get the benefits has been unclear.

Century by century, researchers from the olden days , have been crazy over finding a way to immortality . Yet it seems impossible and not a cure has been found , till now.

However, scientists have been researching on how to extend human life.

Till now, it seems possible that with drastic diet may extend human life with reliable studies of res­i­dents of the Jap­a­nese is­land of Ok­i­nawa, known through much of the last cent­ury both for ex­cep­tion­ally long-lived in­hab­i­tants and for very spare, though bal­anced di­et­s. The in­vest­i­gat­ors said they found ev­i­dence that the two things are at least par­tially re­lat­ed.

An­i­mal tests have found that the ex­treme di­et­ing of ca­lor­ic re­stric­tion en­tails cut­ting some 40 per­cent of calo­ries to get the strongest life-extending ef­fects. An­i­mals placed on such reg­i­mens live up to 40 per­cent long­er than nor­mal, as long as the di­et re­mains nu­tri­tionally bal­anced. (Some sci­en­tists pro­pose—a­gain based mostly on an­i­mal test­s—that tak­ing a sub­stance called resveratrol may rep­li­ca­te ca­lor­ic re­stric­tion’s ben­e­fits, with­out the un­pleas­ant­ness.)

Will­cox and col­leagues found that at least from the mid-20th cen­tu­ry through the 1960s, the Oki­na­wan di­et was about 11 per­cent short of what would nor­mally be rec­om­mended to main­tain body weight. As of 1995, the av­er­age Oki­na­wan lived about five years long­er than the av­er­age Amer­i­can, and about 18 months more than the av­er­age Jap­a­nese.

The is­landers’ spar­tan di­ets may have been a leg­a­cy of “pe­ri­odic crop fail­ures that oc­curred in Oki­na­wa in the early 20th cen­tu­ry and a long his­to­ry of mar­gin­al food sup­ply,” the re­search­ers wrote.

With efficient evidence, there is a possibility that human life span can be increase.

I feel that this is definitely good news to the human lives as who wouldn’t want to live longer, with their loved ones? Who would not want to live longer and enjoy a pleasant life?

However, much further research needs to be done, in order to clarify the doubts.

Source :http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/071115_caloric.htm

By: Madeline

¶ 4:03 PM