Eat less, remember more

[nreece]

I was watching a documentary today titled 'How To Live To 101 Without Trying'. It explores the towns where people live the longest: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7250675.stm

In Okinawa (Japan), the residents actually age more slowly than almost anyone else on earth.

It's what they don't eat that may be at the heart of their exceptionally long lives. The Okinawan's most significant cultural tradition is known as hara hachi bu, which translated means eat until you're only 80% full.

Scientists call it caloric restriction, but don't entirely understand why it works. They think it sends a signal to the body that there is going to be a impending famine, sending it into a protective, self-preservation mode.

Eating less (and healthy) does have its merits.

[khafra]

Dunno if "most significant cultural tradition" is an appropriate appelative when the Okinawans invented Karate, and hara hachi bu was independently developed in Western civilization ("Eat not to satiety," Benjamin Franklin).

[robg]

I seem to find the Zone better when I haven't eaten all day. I wonder if the principles are the same. The studies in rats would seem to be very straightforward - combining a restricted calories diet with maze tests. I'm surprised they haven't been done yet.

[jwilliams]

I seem to find the Zone better when I haven't eaten all day. I wonder if the principles are the same.

This works fine for me, but I've seen counter-examples too - I've had colleagues that are absolutely braindead/grumpy/etc unless they eat.

[dwwatk01]

I seem to remember reading a study (cannot find it at the moment) hypothesizing a lower food intake triggers an evolutionary response. Basically: hungry->must find food->more alert

[zach]

I started dieting with small meals recently and found the same thing happening. The co-founder I worked for at my last job was well-known for being a well-focused hacker as well as skipping lunch. He seemed to run on tea alone.

There may be something to the hungry hacker hypothesis... perhaps it's another reason for startup productivity!

[bd]

"Two words may not seem like much, but it's more than the difference between people under 30 and above 50."

So you lose less than 16% of your memory capacity in 20+ years. Interesting. I was afraid it was worse.

Though I don't think it was really "short term memory" they tested [1]. Even normal adults can recall just 7±2 chunks stored in the short term memory, so 10.5/12.5 for elderly would be extraordinary.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_term_memory

[peregrine]

I'm going to give this a shot. Not radically like the CR people I will just randomly skip meals and not eat after 6pm(good practice anyways).

Maybe it will break my procrastination cause my body begins to work harder to find food. Just gotta make sure my stomach doesn't grumble during the wrong times though.

[aaronblohowiak]

Buddhist monks don't eat after midday. They also likely wake up earlier than programers, though ;)

[bocalogic]

Dostoevsky Hunger

[joe_the_user]

Since the experiment started with overweight people, I can't see it distinguished between losing weight to improve memory and reducing calories to improve memory.