Scratchings-and-Sniffings

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Fountain of Youth Follow Up Posted: 13 Jul 2009 12:20 PM PDT We did a story a little over a year ago on the life extending benefits of caloric restriction in dogs. Well now it seems there are studies in primates that are starting to show similar results. I'm not at all surprised by that. When you have studies in rodents, dogs and now rhesus monkeys, that show similar results, you can assume that there must be some common biological mechanism in play. You can also logically project those similarities to humans, too, without too much of a struggle. Over the weekend there was a nice break from non-stop stories about The King of Pop and the Queen of Flop. In fact, the NYT website had a science story as the number one e-mailed article. This article was about the preliminary results from a long term study in monkeys about the health benefits of caloric restriction.   You may recall from previous posts that Purina did a similar study in labrador Retriever Puppies. We studied Lab litter mates for 14 years. We found that those puppies fed a calorie restricted diet lived longer and lived healthier than their non restricted litter mates. You can read about that study here.   Two teams of researchers started similar studies in rhesus monkeys more than twenty years ago. Rhesus monkeys can live to be 40 so these studies have a while to go, but some of the preliminary conclusions are encouraging.   So how does this work? How can consuming 25-30% fewer calories extend one's life? It seems it's all about energy and the most appropriate use of calories within the body. In biological systems that seems to be the way things break down. Those species that use calories most efficiently are the ones that survive and prosper. That assumes of course that there is not a fast food calorie emporium on every corner.   The evolutionary adaptation at play here is the body's ability to shift biological priorities in the face of caloric restriction. If you were a primitive hunter gatherer and food was in short supply your body would send chemical messages to the various cells in the body to switch over to repair and maintenance mode as opposed to something like storage of calories for reproduction. The benefit is that less cellular damage means less cellular death or aberrant replication which over the long term can mean longer, healthier life.   So, that's the skinny on life extension. The only fly in the ointment for us is that, in America at least, caloric deprivation is a phenomenon of the evolutionary past. Calories are cheap and ubiquitous in this modern world and there is enough stress to go around too, making for a deadly combination that encourages overeating.    Not to worry though, science is coming to the rescue or at least trying to do so. Several entrepreneurial scientists are trying to find chemical messengers that will trick the body into thinking starvation is at hand. We've discussed resveratrol before. More than a convenient excuse for drinking red wine, resveratrol may be the chemical messenger we are looking for. There are others, too, that are under investigation.   We can do something for our dogs and cats and ourselves right now though. We can feed our pets to ideal body condition. They will likely be around longer to comfort us and give us that unconditional love we need so much. Just maybe that combination will allow us to stop stuffing our own pie holes a little while we wait for another magic bullet.

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