Longevity, Restriction, Diet and Fasting.

[Guest guest]

Hi folks:

Here is a rather interesting paper.

Recalling Warren 's post here years ago that of the very long lived 40%-restricted mice those that lived the absolute longest were the ones which, despite their restriction, had managed to retain the most body fat.

The following seems to indicate that higher body fat may result from a low fat diet and "adaptation to fasting", at least in mice:

Physiol Res. 1996;45(2):145-51.

"Influence of intermittent fasting and high-fat diet on morphological changes of the digestive system and on changes of lipid metabolism in the laboratory mouse."

Krízová E, Simek V.

Department of Comparative Animal Physiology and General Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Kotlárská, Czech Republic.

"The simultaneous effect of intermittent starvation and a high-fat diet were investigated in mice after several weeks of experimental feeding. The animals adapted to intermittent fasting fed a high-fat diet showed a lower degree of hyperphagia than animals adapted to intermittent fasting fed a standard laboratory diet. The weight of both individual portions of the stomach was elevated in adapted animals fed both a standard laboratory diet and the high-fat diet. The weight of the small intestine was increased in adapted animals fed a high-fat diet. The length of the small intestine was not changed after 8 weeks of intermittent starvation in both adapted groups (standard laboratory diet, high-fat diet). A higher amount of body fat was found in both groups of animals adapted to intermittent fasting (standard laboratory diet, high-fat diet) but adapted animals fed a high-fat diet showed less body fat than adapted animals fed a standard laboratory diet. Lower levels of serum lipids were found in adapted animals fed a high-fat diet. These results suggest that both lipogenesis and lipid oxidation are accentuated by intermittent starvation and a high-fat diet act concomitantly."

PMID: 9496764

This might be an argument in favor of a fasting routine of some kind.

Rodney.