[CR] Farewell, severe CR!

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Hi All,

The below is forwarded, with permission from the sender.

A Tale of Two CRONies

Two middle-aged men, cognizant of their fleeting mortality, and

wowed by the persuasive arguments Roy Walford assembled in his classic

book, decided to set out to cut calories, and improve nutrition.

The first man had never been overweight, at least by most standards,

and started at 1.9 m and 80 kg (BMI = 22.16), began relentlessly

cutting calories, focusing on vegetables, some fruit, limited whole

grains, and nuts, with occasional fish. After losing 12.5% of his

previous body weight (70 kg, BMI = 19.39) many of his biomarkers

improved greatly, including blood pressure (135/85 -> 110/70),

cholesterol (HDL/LDL = 121/44 -> 99/76) triglycerides (148 -> 52).

However, he decided, in part by reading CR Society Digests, to soldier

on to lower BMI, becoming gradually more obsessed with body weight,

and continuing to lower calories from 1900 to 1800 to 1700. He became

weaker and weaker, and decided to curtail exercise; and the constant

hunger, while not unbearable, made socializing with other people a

little awkward, so he began turning inward, and avoiding many of these

occasions, out of convenience. Spending time reading articles on CR,

nutrition, etc., and fiddling with food preparation and shopping, he

gradually seemed to lose interest in many things that had previously

given him great joy. His weight plummeted finally, over 12 more

months, to 63 kg, at which point a WUSTL visit showed ~0 % fat, very

little musculature, and a " flunk " on the OGTT, with a two-hour reading

of 142 mg/dl after a 75 gram challenge of pure glucose solution.

Although he had previously been a runner, lack of energy had forced

him to walk, if that, and so the fitness test did not go well either,

with an " above average " VO2_max but nothing like the level of fitness

he had previously enjoyed.

Although people began commenting that he " looked terrible " and his

friends and family had urged him to stop being so extreme, it seemed

that CR itself had become a strange raison d'etre, and he stubbornly

refused or ignored their exhortations. It was only a " talking to "

from Dr. Fontana that convinced this victim of midlife crisis that his

approach was not necessarily going to harvest great gains in

longevity, but was certainly affecting almost every aspect of his life

right now, and most in adverse ways. In particular, this level of CR

was much like seeing a black-and-white film: he didn't realize right

away that it was not in color unless, as in the Wizard of Oz, he saw a

sudden switch. At that point he couldn't imagine living in a world of

grays. In the world of grays, very little creative scientific work

was accomplished, leaving this first man with a sputtering career

path, even though he had previously been highly successful. In fact

during severe CR not a single graduate student elected to join his

research group, preferring not to risk the possibility that the

advisor might be on his last legs.

The second man made many of the mistakes of the first, but finally

decided that a BMI between 19.5 and 20.5 is fine. His biomarkers

continued to improve, and he exercised vigorously, and sometimes for

extended periods, to maintain muscle mass and aerobic fitness. To

avoid losing weight, he then simply ate a bit more. Taking a CR lite

approach, he didn't really mind operating this way, and the mental

benefits of exercise far outweighed, for our #2, the hypothetical

" damage " from more calories or oxidative stress. Not overly obsessed

with food, he settled on more of a rough-and-tumble approach, and did

not adopt an adversarial relationship with food, nor did he cross off

verboten foods, reckoning that the dose makes the poison in these

cases. He didn't spend too much time or money on testing ( " monetary

restriction " ), viewed most of the " breaking " results on this or that

development with a wry and skeptical grin, and did not believe that he

would live to be 160, 120 or even 100, regardless of how abstemious

his diet became. After all, if it were " calories, calories, calories "

then, to paraphrase Dr. Walford, where is the 160 year-old human?

There have been billions of people, many have been very, very careful

not to overeat, and to suppose that if CR were a major effect that we

wouldn't know about it already flies in the face of probability and

statistics. No, he thought, even Dr. Walford, rest his soul, could

not escape the Grim Reaper, and genetics, chance, and myriad other

factors enter in. Humans *already* live more than twice as long as

the closest primate relatives. After all, his own father handily

outlived Dr. Walford, and never restricted a single calorie, but

rather never became overweight, stayed active walking 5 miles per day

into his 80s, and enjoyed vegetables, fruits, and less healthful fare

in moderation. No he thought, it's much deeper than the perfunctory

" QOL " that appears from time to time, mostly as an annoyance that

prevents even more severe CR. Merely existing longer has nothing much

to recommend it, unless perhaps you're a historian or so afraid of

your inevitable demise that you cling to a thin thread of hope that

there will eventually be a pill to halt aging (or, while we're

daydreaming, how about reversing it, so you can remain 22 forever

instead of 122?). The key is to live; that life is limited in

duration gives it more meaning, and makes each moment precious.

Existing in a fringe metabolic Twilight Zone to gain a few more years,

and they are at the end, I'm afraid, by definition, just didn't make

any sense to our #2. And wasting a ton of time obsessing about this

or that " mistake " means that your supposed life extension gains are

more than swallowed up tabulating data in Nutribase! As Bernard Shaw

wrote in the introduction to the Doctor's Dilemma: Do not try to live

forever—you will not succeed.

I could continue the tale, but I suspect that you may have already

guessed that both our players are in fact Yours Truly. My conclusion:

eating well is very important, as is eating lite. But diet is no

panacea and, ultimately, should occupy a pretty small mental space in

one's life. It doesn't take much effort to stay lean, muscular,

active, and vigorous while avoiding the obviously awful habits of most

people. But to erroneously promulgate the calories, calories,

calories mantra is a huge oversimplification. Life will be limited in

duration no matter what advances are made: Enjoy the ride.

--

A. J. Shaka

Al Pater, PhD; email: old542000@...

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