It should be noted that a parallel study[1] at the National Institute for Aging (NIA) found that this was not the case. The authors of this study (UW) claim (as far as I understand) that the NIA study was flawed because both Control and Calorie Restricted (CR) monkeys were fed diets that were both restrictive, and not sufficiently different. There also seem to be some debate about the composition of the diets. The controls in the UW study were allowed to eat as they pleased (i.e. become fatties if they wanted). They claim that if both "modest" or "moderate" CR are equivalent, it would be a very important conclusion. The practical consequence, if true, would be that we wouldn't have to starve ourselves too much.
Mouse models had suggested years ago that calorie restriction could lead to ~%50 increase in lifetime. However, the problem with mouse studies is that they are pretty different, and also the mice they use are really inbred and perhaps non-ideal examples. The conclusion from the primate studies is really stacking up to be a common sense "eat in moderation, healthy, and you'll live at least a little longer, maybe a lot". Not really groundbreaking stuff, to be honest. And still not conclusive when you consider the resources that went into these studies. This also teaches us nothing about mechanisms, which would be really useful. Just my cursory assessment so far.
The publicity materials for this recent set of results do a good job of explaining why the researchers think that the NIA study is flawed. In essence the NIA control monkeys are probably on CR.
“In Wisconsin, we started with adults. We knew how much food they wanted to eat, and we based our experimental diet on a 30 percent reduction in calories from that point.” In contrast, the NIA monkeys were fed according to a standardized food intake chart designed by the National Academy of Science.
Through their own experience in monkey research, and by reference to an online database recording the weight of thousands of research monkeys, the Wisconsin researchers concluded that the NIA controls were actually on caloric restriction as well, says Colman. “At all the time points that have been published by NIA, their control monkeys weigh less than ours, and in most cases, significantly so.”
Weindruch also points to some results from the NIA that seem to contradict the “no significant result” analysis. Twenty monkeys entered the NIA study as mature adults, 10 in the test group and 10 in the control group, and five of these (four test monkeys and one control monkey) lived at least 40 years. “Heretofore, there was never a monkey that we are aware of that was reported to live beyond 40 years,” Weindruch says. “Hence, the conclusion that caloric restriction is ineffective in their study does not make sense to me and my colleagues.”
Caloric restriction is absolutely fascinating in all forms. I think intermittent fasting might be the best-known variant of this, but there are others. All of them cause dramatic changes in the way bodies function, from changing the hormones secreted to changing the form of fuel it uses to run itself (e.g. ketones in low-carb diets instead of glucose).
Caloric restriction has a whole bunch of knock-on effects, any one of which could have a huge impact on health and aging. For example, restricting calories means that you're restricting protein. Most people think of protein as a good thing, but that's what stimulates the hormone IGF-1 to be secreted, which is necessary for growth of all kinds--muscle growth (which is why bodybuilders eat as much protein as possible), but also including cancer.
I've seen research that suggests that cells don't go into "repair mode" in the presence of IGF-1. This is just one example of a possible mechanism that caloric restriction could have a hugely beneficial effect on aging and illness in general.
I have a half-written blog post about this I should push out. I'd love to get some more conversation going around this.
>For example, restricting calories means that you're restricting protein. Most people think of protein as a good thing, but that's what stimulates the hormone IGF-1 to be secreted, which is necessary for growth of all kinds--muscle growth (which is why bodybuilders eat as much protein as possible), but also including cancer.
While people on CR do seem to try and keep IGF-1 on the lower side, there's no consensus on protein yet. Most seem to eat a normal proportion, (though still less than average person since their overall intake it lower.).
I have seen some people doing CR specially avoid whey protein because it's known to particularly raise IGF-1 (which is why on the other hand people trying to maximize size of muscles like it)
Most people think of protein as a good thing, but <that's> what stimulates the hormone IGF-1 to be secreted, which is necessary for growth of all kinds
When you say "that's" are you referring protein and specifically its presence or absence? It would be interesting indeed to see more research on this as well if possible dimensionalize by not only retsricted/normal kCal but at variations in % kCal by proteing etc. It would also perhaps be very interesting to understand if the variations align as mean values above and below "normal" caloric restricion. Ie, imagine a polar explorer who is operating in caloric deficit yet at high exertion thresholds for days on end. And/or contrast this with caloric restriction in the sense of < normal 2200 per day (or whatevs).
This paper rehashes 2 studies. In the original Wisconsin one that showed a great benefit to CR
... were fed a semi-purified, nutritionally fortified, low-fat diet containing 15% protein and 10% fat.
The monkeys without CR ended up getting diabetes and they were giving them insulin. This study made a big splash, but as others point out it probably really only helps prove that eating less crap is good for you.
This paper appears to include some of the same authors of the Wisconsin study and tries to explain why the NIH performed a study that did not replicate their results. This paper claims that the control group in the NIH study actually underwent CR by comparing them to a database of captive primates. If that is true, then the title still seems strange, because it doesn't mean the NIH study provides meaningful supporting evidence, it means it was an invalid test of the CR hypothesis and instead it provides some extremely weak supporting evidence of the CR hypothesis.
What's interesting about human all-cause mortality trends is that human beings in the developed countries have been gaining three months of lifespan for every year that they live (sometimes described as "six hours each day").[1] Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing" by James Vaupel,[2] originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. Vaupel is one of the leading scholars on the demography of aging and how to adjust for time trends in life expectancy. A lot incremental improvements in both public health and in medical practice, as well as much better nutrition than in the old days, are steadily increasing life expectancy.[3] This is happening for people of all ages; life expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising, and all-cause mortality and morbidity declining, throughout the developed countries of the world.[4]
So the monkey research needs to be meshed in with human research that shows that mildly "overweight" (if fit) human beings have better mortality outcomes than human beings of normal weight[5] to tease out what the causation is for health outcomes of different patterns of nutrition. The example of Rimonabant[6] shows that sometimes an animal model doesn't adequately predict treatment effects in human subjects.
> Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing" by James Vaupel,[2] originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject.
You or someone else presented this highly speculative claim as fact a long time ago on HN. I've tried to find the comment link, but I can't.
In any case, the support for this supposed fact is very dubious. You link to one article by Vaupel in Nature who, in making this claim, cites only this paper
by Christensen et al. The paper says, in the abstract,
> If the pace of increase in life expectancy in developed countries over the past two centuries continues through the 21st century, most babies born since 2000 in France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the USA, Canada, Japan, and other countries with long life expectancies will celebrate their 100th birthdays.
Very few medical researchers are likely to find that "if" statement at all plausible, so this claim about most newborn girls living to 100 is bogus. If you have a better source for this claim, please present it. Otherwise, stop posting it.
> Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long
I'm sure this is backed up by studies and references, and at the same time I am amused at the hubris of making this statement. It's a cheap prediction to make, given that it will be around 2070 before you can verify it - and how right it is depends on lack-of-catastrohpies (e.g. in 20 years we'll have an idea how the meltdown in Fukushima affects lifespan), same-rate-and-same-kind-and-availability of advances, etc.
And before you criticize me for being "anti-sciece" - I am not, and unlike a lot of other assertions, this might technically be science (I haven't reviewed the source material) - however, it is not useful science because it may take 70 years to falsify.
Furthermore, a lot of -- perhaps most -- extrapolations of past trends had been wrong. At the time of Wallace & Darwin it was "scientifically" extrapolated that food will only grow linearly. And in 1980 climate studies had shown that if we don't do anything (and we didn't) by 2000 quite a few coastal cities will be underwater. If I wasn't anonymous, I'd place a long bet that the data crunching that led to this prediction will turn out to be complete rubish.
Re: mildly overweight having better mortality outcomes, see this recent study that was designed to remove the confounding factors of smoking and illness-induced weight loss, and then found excess weight does indeed adversely impact mortality (the study was limited by self-reported weight):
People are mentioning caloric restriction not being worth it for humans because of quality of life vs length of life.
However one thought that I find interesting, is that for our generation, living just two or three extra years could potentially make a huge difference.
If you subscribe to the idea of a coming technological singularity, or even to the idea that we're a few decades away from SENS escape velocity, you'd hate to miss it by just a couple of years.
Might be. I think the quality of life issues are overstated, but I'm an ectomorph so I can change my food intake on a whim. Being hungry isn't a distraction to me unless I'm very busy physically.
See comments above, the original research is flawed. New research shows that moderate caloric restriction has no statistically significant effect over eating a healthy diet within your caloric needs. It is overeating which decreases your life span.
I thought about doing CR for a while - I read the "120 Year Diet," and was considering giving it a try. Then I met up with a couple who was into hardcore CR. I had dinner with them. Two things made me decide not to do it:
1) they seemed frail and weak - the man seemed to have a constant runny nose. I felt that if he fell down he would break his hip. The risk of injury and death from physical weakness seemed like it would counter any benefits from CR for lifespan.
2) They put so much effort into measuring every ingredient, and running computer programs with recipes to get the optimal nutrients with as little calories as possible. It seemed to take so much time in preparation, and you could mostly only eat at home.
>Then I met up with a couple who was into hardcore CR.
You probably met someone on the extreme hardcore edge of it. Certainly it's a spectrum and counting calories and nutrients with computer programs is extremely normal today -- there are about a million programs that do it on your phone for you including taking photos of bar codes, etc.
Ketogenic diet combined with intermittent fasting can be simple solution for this. Ketogenic diet controls your appetite and having one meal a day helps you to control your calorie intake.
According to the Nature Comms Open Access guidelines somebody paid $4,800 for this article to be published under a BY-NC-SA license. In general who ends up paying, the authors or the authors' respective institutions?
Open Access fees:[^1]
(CC BY) (CC BY-NC-SA) Region
-------------------------------------------------
$5,200 $4,800 (The Americas)
€3,700 €3,425 (Europe)
¥661,500 ¥612,150 (Japan)
RMB33,100 RMB30,600 (China)
£3,150 £2,915 (UK and Rest of World)
Typically the institutions, although I can't say specifically who paid in this instance.
This is an interesting point and I'll raise it at work: should the sponsor of an article be formally noted, along with the particulars of it's peer review, license, etc?
Also, a shameless plug: http://www.ubiquitypress.com/publish because OA isn't an expensive proposition, it just depends how it is handled and by whom.
There is lots of interesting research on the links between caloric restriction and the ageing process. It's the impact on the insulin and insulin like growth factor (IGF-1) pathways that seems to be important:
Am I the only one who finds this caloric restriction stuff depressing? If starving for 50 years will increase my life I don't even want to know about it. Stupid science. Next they're going to tell us that a combination of caloric restriction & celibacy will do even more.
Ageing has been such an insurmountable problem, any methods that indicate that there are ways to somewhat control it are promising and can lead to other discoveries.
Perhaps CR only invokes the release of hormones that have a protective effect on cells. Replicate the hormone and perhaps actual caloric restriction may not be necessary.
On the other hand age related diseases like diabetes have some pretty unpleasant symptoms, if you could avoid them just by adjusting your diet in later years it's worth knowing about.
Well, orgasm results in a surge of prolactin which is known to have certain negative effects. There's arguably a case for keeping orgasm frequency low.
>Received 12 October 2013 Accepted 05 March 2014 Published 01 April 2014
Am I the only one who finds this crazy? It takes 6 months from submission date till publication!
The peer review process should move faster and become modernized. I undrestand, you want to be published on prestigious journals, but Nature and others can modernize to publish more. You can argue, we lost 6 months or half a year of progress because of the pace of antiquated publication process.
The counterargument should be obvious -- peer reviewers are often unpaid experts who review pending articles in whatever spare time they happen to have, between delivering lectures, research, and applying for grants. To speed up the process woulds be to increase its cost, possibly very much, or to degrade the peer review process.
The defects of another alternative should also be obvious -- paid peer reviewers. If this change took place, people would line up for positions they aren't qualified for on the simple ground that they can get paid to appear to be what they aren't. Also, for many cutting-edge fields, there simply aren't more than a handful of qualified reviewers at any price.
Done correctly, reviewing papers is a tedious, time consuming & utterly thankless job that takes time away from your own research. Papers also often go through 2 or three rounds of reviewing/revision. Each one of these cycles can take 1-2 months so it's not surprising it's a slow process.
You misspelled "understand" in a comment criticizing the review process. If this was irony, I must say your trolling is sublime. However if this was an error I think you might want to rethink your position. I have no problem waiting 6 months or a year for peer reviewed publications.
A lot of people are jumping to extremes. I don't take this to mean I should starve myself. Instead this does encourage me to stop eating until I'm full, just until I'm no longer hungry.
If I'm reading this correctly it says that the findings apply to 1) short lived species and 2) rhesus primates. It also says that the effects of CR may or may not be preserved on humans.
So the only real finding here seems to be that we are now able to extend the lifespan of some monkeys.
While I don't disagree factually with what you're saying, the way you're saying it sounds like a slight misunderstanding of the results here.
CR has been shown to have effects on short-lived species because that's all that's been testable so far. CR has actually been remarkably consistent in its effects across many different species.
The rhesus monkey studies are the first ones to attempt to replicate the longevity results found in the previous tests that were performed on short-lived species. The NIA rhesus study results released a short while back seemed to be the first failure of replicating CR longevity results. This seemed to be a blow to the theory that CR would be efficacious with higher primates.
However, this study is saying that the first rhesus study was conducted incorrectly and that the results were incorrectly interpreted. They're basically saying that scientifically, CR is still batting a thousand.
Doing lifespan studies on long-lived species simply takes that much longer times - to test a hypothesis on humans, it'd take some 70+ years.
It can be done and we will do it, but that will be only a benefit for the future generations - all that you and me can do is to assume (or not assume) that the measured effects will generalize to us as well.
The test is lab grade monkey chow vs. less lab grade monkey chow. I don't think one can extrapolate that eating less calories on a very high quality and low toxin source of calories is better.
Monkeys do best on perfectly ripe and fresh tropical fruits. Is that what they were eating? I really doubt it.
'cause who really likes _eating_, anyway. A no-brainer to just reduce food. Yeah that'll work.
Lots of things might reduce mortality and prolong lifespan. It's quite another thing to ask whether these things are viable options for modern human beings.
In the early 90's my girlfriend was into CR. She was also into supplements. No one that I've ever known took so many vitamins, minerals, herbs, and antioxidants. She ordered them in bulk in powdered form and made a mess in the kitchen mixing them up every day. Of course, now there's evidence that heavy doses of vitamins aren't beneficial and may actually be harmful.
As to the calorie reduction, she was quite successful in controlling her diet. She ordered guar gum in 50 lb sacks (from Tic Gums), mixing it with water to have something in her stomach when she was hungry. She seemed to settle into a routine that I don't think I could have tolerated. She didn't ever look anorexic, but had very very low body fat.
She was very afraid of getting old and this motivated her. I think that without some sort of pharmaceutical breakthrough that controls hunger, the rest of us will not find CR practical.
[+] [-] naterator|12 years ago|reply
Mouse models had suggested years ago that calorie restriction could lead to ~%50 increase in lifetime. However, the problem with mouse studies is that they are pretty different, and also the mice they use are really inbred and perhaps non-ideal examples. The conclusion from the primate studies is really stacking up to be a common sense "eat in moderation, healthy, and you'll live at least a little longer, maybe a lot". Not really groundbreaking stuff, to be honest. And still not conclusive when you consider the resources that went into these studies. This also teaches us nothing about mechanisms, which would be really useful. Just my cursory assessment so far.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/science/low-calorie-diet-d...
[+] [-] exratione|12 years ago|reply
http://www.newswise.com/articles/monkey-caloric-restriction-...
“In Wisconsin, we started with adults. We knew how much food they wanted to eat, and we based our experimental diet on a 30 percent reduction in calories from that point.” In contrast, the NIA monkeys were fed according to a standardized food intake chart designed by the National Academy of Science.
Through their own experience in monkey research, and by reference to an online database recording the weight of thousands of research monkeys, the Wisconsin researchers concluded that the NIA controls were actually on caloric restriction as well, says Colman. “At all the time points that have been published by NIA, their control monkeys weigh less than ours, and in most cases, significantly so.”
Weindruch also points to some results from the NIA that seem to contradict the “no significant result” analysis. Twenty monkeys entered the NIA study as mature adults, 10 in the test group and 10 in the control group, and five of these (four test monkeys and one control monkey) lived at least 40 years. “Heretofore, there was never a monkey that we are aware of that was reported to live beyond 40 years,” Weindruch says. “Hence, the conclusion that caloric restriction is ineffective in their study does not make sense to me and my colleagues.”
[+] [-] jasonkolb|12 years ago|reply
Caloric restriction has a whole bunch of knock-on effects, any one of which could have a huge impact on health and aging. For example, restricting calories means that you're restricting protein. Most people think of protein as a good thing, but that's what stimulates the hormone IGF-1 to be secreted, which is necessary for growth of all kinds--muscle growth (which is why bodybuilders eat as much protein as possible), but also including cancer.
I've seen research that suggests that cells don't go into "repair mode" in the presence of IGF-1. This is just one example of a possible mechanism that caloric restriction could have a hugely beneficial effect on aging and illness in general.
I have a half-written blog post about this I should push out. I'd love to get some more conversation going around this.
[+] [-] KVFinn|12 years ago|reply
While people on CR do seem to try and keep IGF-1 on the lower side, there's no consensus on protein yet. Most seem to eat a normal proportion, (though still less than average person since their overall intake it lower.).
I have seen some people doing CR specially avoid whey protein because it's known to particularly raise IGF-1 (which is why on the other hand people trying to maximize size of muscles like it)
[+] [-] 001sky|12 years ago|reply
When you say "that's" are you referring protein and specifically its presence or absence? It would be interesting indeed to see more research on this as well if possible dimensionalize by not only retsricted/normal kCal but at variations in % kCal by proteing etc. It would also perhaps be very interesting to understand if the variations align as mean values above and below "normal" caloric restricion. Ie, imagine a polar explorer who is operating in caloric deficit yet at high exertion thresholds for days on end. And/or contrast this with caloric restriction in the sense of < normal 2200 per day (or whatevs).
[+] [-] gregwebs|12 years ago|reply
This paper appears to include some of the same authors of the Wisconsin study and tries to explain why the NIH performed a study that did not replicate their results. This paper claims that the control group in the NIH study actually underwent CR by comparing them to a database of captive primates. If that is true, then the title still seems strange, because it doesn't mean the NIH study provides meaningful supporting evidence, it means it was an invalid test of the CR hypothesis and instead it provides some extremely weak supporting evidence of the CR hypothesis.
As a side note, there is evidence that the CR benefit is from protein restriction and possibly just avoiding protein imbalances. https://chriskresser.com/do-high-protein-diets-cause-kidney-... (scroll to Is protein to blame—or is methionine?)
[+] [-] tokenadult|12 years ago|reply
So the monkey research needs to be meshed in with human research that shows that mildly "overweight" (if fit) human beings have better mortality outcomes than human beings of normal weight[5] to tease out what the causation is for health outcomes of different patterns of nutrition. The example of Rimonabant[6] shows that sometimes an animal model doesn't adequately predict treatment effects in human subjects.
[1] http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....
[2] http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2...
[3] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_...
[4] http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...
[5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23280227
[6] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19578688
[+] [-] jessriedel|12 years ago|reply
You or someone else presented this highly speculative claim as fact a long time ago on HN. I've tried to find the comment link, but I can't.
In any case, the support for this supposed fact is very dubious. You link to one article by Vaupel in Nature who, in making this claim, cites only this paper
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810516/
by Christensen et al. The paper says, in the abstract,
> If the pace of increase in life expectancy in developed countries over the past two centuries continues through the 21st century, most babies born since 2000 in France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the USA, Canada, Japan, and other countries with long life expectancies will celebrate their 100th birthdays.
Very few medical researchers are likely to find that "if" statement at all plausible, so this claim about most newborn girls living to 100 is bogus. If you have a better source for this claim, please present it. Otherwise, stop posting it.
[+] [-] beagle3|12 years ago|reply
I'm sure this is backed up by studies and references, and at the same time I am amused at the hubris of making this statement. It's a cheap prediction to make, given that it will be around 2070 before you can verify it - and how right it is depends on lack-of-catastrohpies (e.g. in 20 years we'll have an idea how the meltdown in Fukushima affects lifespan), same-rate-and-same-kind-and-availability of advances, etc.
And before you criticize me for being "anti-sciece" - I am not, and unlike a lot of other assertions, this might technically be science (I haven't reviewed the source material) - however, it is not useful science because it may take 70 years to falsify.
Furthermore, a lot of -- perhaps most -- extrapolations of past trends had been wrong. At the time of Wallace & Darwin it was "scientifically" extrapolated that food will only grow linearly. And in 1980 climate studies had shown that if we don't do anything (and we didn't) by 2000 quite a few coastal cities will be underwater. If I wasn't anonymous, I'd place a long bet that the data crunching that led to this prediction will turn out to be complete rubish.
[+] [-] js2|12 years ago|reply
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2014/04/uncovering-tru...
[+] [-] mrfusion|12 years ago|reply
However one thought that I find interesting, is that for our generation, living just two or three extra years could potentially make a huge difference.
If you subscribe to the idea of a coming technological singularity, or even to the idea that we're a few decades away from SENS escape velocity, you'd hate to miss it by just a couple of years.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crpatino|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unchocked|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ca98am79|12 years ago|reply
1) they seemed frail and weak - the man seemed to have a constant runny nose. I felt that if he fell down he would break his hip. The risk of injury and death from physical weakness seemed like it would counter any benefits from CR for lifespan.
2) They put so much effort into measuring every ingredient, and running computer programs with recipes to get the optimal nutrients with as little calories as possible. It seemed to take so much time in preparation, and you could mostly only eat at home.
[+] [-] Quaro|12 years ago|reply
You probably met someone on the extreme hardcore edge of it. Certainly it's a spectrum and counting calories and nutrients with computer programs is extremely normal today -- there are about a million programs that do it on your phone for you including taking photos of bar codes, etc.
[+] [-] mishkovski|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Beliavsky|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfc|12 years ago|reply
Open Access fees:[^1]
[^1]: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/open_access/index.html[+] [-] lsh|12 years ago|reply
This is an interesting point and I'll raise it at work: should the sponsor of an article be formally noted, along with the particulars of it's peer review, license, etc?
Also, a shameless plug: http://www.ubiquitypress.com/publish because OA isn't an expensive proposition, it just depends how it is handled and by whom.
[+] [-] Harj|12 years ago|reply
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867412...
http://kenyonlab.ucsf.edu/Kenyon_2010_Nature_rev.pdf
[+] [-] didgeoridoo|12 years ago|reply
It will certainly FEEL longer.
[+] [-] netcan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crusso|12 years ago|reply
Perhaps CR only invokes the release of hormones that have a protective effect on cells. Replicate the hormone and perhaps actual caloric restriction may not be necessary.
[+] [-] tonyedgecombe|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pvnick|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulodeon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a8da6b0c91d|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salimmadjd|12 years ago|reply
Am I the only one who finds this crazy? It takes 6 months from submission date till publication!
The peer review process should move faster and become modernized. I undrestand, you want to be published on prestigious journals, but Nature and others can modernize to publish more. You can argue, we lost 6 months or half a year of progress because of the pace of antiquated publication process.
[+] [-] lutusp|12 years ago|reply
The defects of another alternative should also be obvious -- paid peer reviewers. If this change took place, people would line up for positions they aren't qualified for on the simple ground that they can get paid to appear to be what they aren't. Also, for many cutting-edge fields, there simply aren't more than a handful of qualified reviewers at any price.
[+] [-] randlet|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] searine|12 years ago|reply
At best you have a 2-3 month wait. At worst, years.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fatjokes|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netcan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] higherpurpose|12 years ago|reply
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140331194030.ht...
[+] [-] cliveowen|12 years ago|reply
So the only real finding here seems to be that we are now able to extend the lifespan of some monkeys.
[+] [-] crusso|12 years ago|reply
CR has been shown to have effects on short-lived species because that's all that's been testable so far. CR has actually been remarkably consistent in its effects across many different species.
The rhesus monkey studies are the first ones to attempt to replicate the longevity results found in the previous tests that were performed on short-lived species. The NIA rhesus study results released a short while back seemed to be the first failure of replicating CR longevity results. This seemed to be a blow to the theory that CR would be efficacious with higher primates.
However, this study is saying that the first rhesus study was conducted incorrectly and that the results were incorrectly interpreted. They're basically saying that scientifically, CR is still batting a thousand.
[+] [-] PeterisP|12 years ago|reply
It can be done and we will do it, but that will be only a benefit for the future generations - all that you and me can do is to assume (or not assume) that the measured effects will generalize to us as well.
[+] [-] neves|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RighteousFervor|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gwern|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a8da6b0c91d|12 years ago|reply
Monkeys do best on perfectly ripe and fresh tropical fruits. Is that what they were eating? I really doubt it.
[+] [-] knodi123|12 years ago|reply
The idea that anything processed in a factory is full of "toxins" and anything from nature is "healthy" is an irritating and pervasive fallacy.
Were you referring to a specific toxin that is in their foods, or were you using it in the more vague and hand-wavy "woo woo homeopathic" sense?
[+] [-] dustin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] plg|12 years ago|reply
Lots of things might reduce mortality and prolong lifespan. It's quite another thing to ask whether these things are viable options for modern human beings.
[+] [-] todd8|12 years ago|reply
As to the calorie reduction, she was quite successful in controlling her diet. She ordered guar gum in 50 lb sacks (from Tic Gums), mixing it with water to have something in her stomach when she was hungry. She seemed to settle into a routine that I don't think I could have tolerated. She didn't ever look anorexic, but had very very low body fat.
She was very afraid of getting old and this motivated her. I think that without some sort of pharmaceutical breakthrough that controls hunger, the rest of us will not find CR practical.