How Caloric Restriction Will Lengthen Your Life Span

It's a smart idea to err on the lean side, if your health goal is to live a long, ripe life and age gracefully rather than painfully. There is increasing evidence that caloric restriction (CR), if done with nutrient-dense foods, can get you the most out of your genetically pre-determined life span.

In other words, I'm not saying that CR lengthens life span. But eating too much shortens it. Your aim should be to eliminate environmental factors that will cut short your life span potential. This can be partially accomplished by employing CR as your dietary regimen.

A study was once done on two young monkeys. One was fed amply with delectable food. The other was fed a tightly-controlled diet of limited calories. Over time, the "lucky" monkey slowed down and became lethargic, during monkey middle-aged years, and was already showing signs of early cardiovascular disease. Meanwhile, the "deprived" monkey was swinging and hopping around like an adolescent, and had no diagnostic signs of degeneration. Rodents fed a CR diet also experience longer life spans than rodents fed normally.

Calorie intake, according to many researchers in this area, is actually a stronger predictor of life span, and risk of cancer and heart disease, than is exercise. But it's also important to note that exercise has more profound benefits on humans than on laboratory mice and rats.

CR makes mitochondria more efficient. Mitochondria are components in every cell in your body. Their main function is to provide energy and help get rid of "free radicals," which are unstable oxygen atoms that can trigger malignant growths. Studies in the lab show that CR causes a decrease in the damage caused by free radicals to DNA.

According to the Alliance for Aging Research in Washington, D.C., CR is the only intervention that has been documented in laboratory animals to increase the average life span, or the average number of years an animal is expected to live, and maximum life span-the maximum number of years a species can possibly reach.