Anti-Aging Diet

Posted on Thursday, 8th May 2008 by admin

Consume low-calorie foods has proven to be a determining element of the physical conservation of animals, this scientific approach, called calorie restriction, involves the daily intake of about 30% less calories, but without the expense of the consumption of adequate levels of vitamins , minerals and other nutrients.
In a laboratory at the National Center for Primate Research in Wisconsin, Matthias learns the hard way about the vagaries of time. He has 28 years, an advanced age for a rhesus monkey. Is losing her hair, loading a prominent abdomen and his face is furrowed by wrinkles.
In a cage nearby, Rudy, a fellow lab Matthias, is the spitting image of vitality, even though it is slightly older than he. Her complexion is fine and festive mood.

“The difference between the two animals is more than evident,” says Ricky Colman, a researcher at the center and caretaker of both specimens. What is not obvious is that, due to a simple intervention in the life style of Rudy, he and others like him, without expectation of a longer life.

This scientific approach, called calorie restriction, involves the daily intake of about 30% less calories, but without the expense of the consumption of adequate levels of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. In addition to direct genetic manipulation, calorie restriction is the only strategy known to extend life consistently in various species.

How this diet affects the body so drastic has been the subject of intense research, which has recently begun to bear fruit, producing a new stream of studies indicating that the aging rate is flexible and not fixed, and can be manipulated.

In the last year the diet of caloric restriction has been shown to affect molecular pathways involved in the progression of Alzheimer’s, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, some cancers and heart disease. In early 2006, researchers involved in the study of the effects of dietary caloric restriction ventured to declare that it is even more effective than exercise.

Animals like Rudy seem to support this thesis. Recent tests showed that monkeys subjected to calorie restriction diets, including Canto and Eeyore, two other rhesus Research Center, enjoy a health unquestionably better than that of Matthias and his companions that have similar age, but are fed with a traditional diet.

The findings cast doubt on the scientific belief that ancestral and cultural decline of the body is inevitable. It also suggests that other factors, which include new drugs, may retard the aging processes, even if the diet itself should prove ineffective in the case of humans.

In that sense, a strong candidate is a drug synthesized from resveratrol, an antioxidant present in large amounts of red wine, which has been tested in humans and could eventually become the first of a new class of anti-aging drugs.

The pathologist at the University of Michigan, Richard A. Miller estimated that a pill that mimetice the effects of dietary caloric restriction could prolong life for people up to 112 years, so healthy. Even some of them, he said, could reach 140 years.

A report generated by the Rand Corporation, a company specializing in the area, said that consumption of such drugs have an estimated cost of 90 thousand pesos a year, well if you consider the cost-saving medicines for all the ills brought about the age .

“Calorie restriction has the potential to help us identify anti-aging mechanisms throughout the body,” said Richard Weindruch, gerontologists at the University of Wisconsin, and leader of the research.

While the average life has increased markedly, yet have not been able to counteract the effects of time in the body, hence the results of this research are key to improving the quality of life for the elderly.

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