Saw an interesting article in Scientific American AUG 2002 on the serious search for an anti-aging pill. Mark A. Lane, Donald K. Ingram and George S. RothIn short this pill would interfere with the way cells process glucose - prevents most of it from being processed which reduces ATP synthesis. This results in caloric restriction - blocking sugar. LC diets are already following this path; a voluntary attempt to cut down glucose. The pill will be Atkins Diet in a pill. Eat what you want and the pill will block the glucose. So we are doing an anti-aging diet! That is what we can tell people from now on. I am on an anti-aging diet! This pill is not ready for humans.

Thanks Gary, this is a good article. If someone wants to read it:

August 2002 issue
The Serious Search for an Anti-Aging Pill
In government laboratories and elsewhere, scientists are seeking a drug able to prolong life and youthful vigor. Studies of caloric restriction are showing the way
By Mark A. Lane, Donald K. Ingram and George S. Roth


CALORIC-RESTRICTION MIMETIC would, if successful, enable humans to derive many of the health and life-extending benefits seen in animals on restricted diets--without requiring people to go hungry.
As researchers on aging noted in a position statement this past May, no treatment on the market today has been proved to slow human aging--the buildup of molecular and cellular damage that increases vulnerability to infirmity as we grow older. But one intervention, consumption of a low-calorie yet nutritionally balanced diet, works incredibly well in a broad range of animals, increasing longevity and prolonging good health. Those findings suggest that caloric restriction could delay aging in humans, too.
Unfortunately, for maximum benefit, people would probably have to reduce their caloric intake by roughly 30 percent, equivalent to dropping from 2,500 calories a day to 1,750. Few mortals could stick to that harsh a regimen, especially for years on end. But what if someone could create a pill that mimicked the physiological effects of eating less without actually forcing people to go hungry? Could such a caloric-restriction mimetic, as we call it, enable people to stay healthy longer, postponing age-related disorders (such as diabetes, atherosclerosis, heart disease and cancer) until very late in life?

We first posed this question in the mid-1990s, after we came upon a chemical agent that, in rodents, seemed to reproduce many of caloric restriction's benefits. Since then, we and others have been searching for a compound that would safely achieve the same feat in people. We have not succeeded yet, but our failures have been informative and have fanned hope that caloric-restriction, or CR, mimetics can indeed be developed eventually.

The Benefits of Caloric Restriction

Our hunt for cr mimetics grew out of our desire to better understand caloric restriction's many effects on the body. Scientists first recognized the value of the practice more than 60 years ago, when they found that rats fed a low-calorie diet lived longer on average than free-feeding rats and had a reduced incidence of conditions that become increasingly common in old age. What is more, some of the treated animals survived longer than the oldest-living animals in the control group, which means that the maximum life span (the oldest attainable age), not merely the average life span, increased. Various interventions, such as infection-fighting drugs, can increase a population's average survival time, but only approaches that slow the body's rate of aging will increase the maximum life span.


The rat findings have been replicated many times and extended to creatures ranging from yeast to fruit flies, worms, fish, spiders, mice and hamsters. Until fairly recently, the studies were limited to short-lived creatures genetically distant from humans. But long-term projects under way in two species more closely related to humans--rhesus and squirrel monkeys--suggest that primates respond to caloric restriction almost identically to rodents, which makes us more optimistic than ever that CR mimetics could help people.

The monkey projects--initiated by our group at the National Institute on Aging in the late 1980s and by a separate team at the University of Wisconsin- Madison in the early 1990s--demonstrate that, compared with control animals that eat normally, caloric-restricted monkeys have lower body temperatures and levels of the pancreatic hormone insulin, and they retain more youthful levels of certain hormones (such as DHEAS, or dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate) that tend to fall with age.

The animals also look better on indicators of risk for age-related diseases. For example, they have lower blood pressure and triglyceride levels (signifying a decreased likelihood of heart disease), and they have more normal blood glucose levels (pointing to a reduced risk for diabetes, which is marked by unusually high blood glucose levels). Further, we have recently shown that rhesus monkeys kept on caloric restriction for an extended time (nearly 15 years) have less chronic disease, just as the risk data suggested. They and the other monkeys must be followed still longer, however, before we will know whether low food intake can increase both average and maximum life spans in monkeys: rhesus monkeys typically live about 24 years and sometimes up to 40; squirrel monkeys typically live about 19 years but may live for 28.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ar...588EEDF&catID=2

I have a question. If they think (and rightly so) that mere mortals can't live on 1750 calories a day for years on end, why do they think that and low fat, calorie restricted diet that's being touted now will work long term??

Just wonderin'!

Amber

OK, I don't like this and I have to tell you about a piece on the news I saw a couple months ago:

I saw this report on a man who was eating a restricted calorie diet to "lengthen" his life so he would have more time with his family. On the surface, that's a noble endeavour. And I don't know how restricted his calories are.

However, the travesty of what he is doing is that his body is deteriorating. At about 35 he already has osteoporosis and a host of other illnesses, fatigue, and has had infections, etc. And he was taking supplements. He's wasting away. And how about the quality of that longer life with his family if he can't walk or function in any normal way?

My take on this: The ills that they are saying restricting calories will delay: insulin resistance, diabetes, heart disease, cancer... these are all things that we are delaying with low-carbing. Lowering calories, IMHO, is NOT the way to go. They just want to prove that low-fat/low-calories is healthier for humans. They are going to be proven wrong.

Also, as to those rats, they are carnivores/scavengers. And in captivity they are fed a cereal diet. No wonder their lives are shortened. I would like to see what happens when you feed them a mostly meat diet. I'd be willing to bet that they would live a lot longer with fewer illnesses.

I have switched my carnivore pets (dog and cat) to a raw meat diet to lengthen and improve the quality of their lives. I have not restricted their calories, but what do you want to bet my cat (who started his WOE at 15 months) will live to a much older age than most cats (my dog started when he was 12 years old, so for him I am expecting his last years will be healthier). They have both lost weight, which they needed to do and are now maintaining a healthy weight. Their coats are silkier, shinier, and lovelier. They are more energetic and their teeth are better. They also have less "waste" for me to pick up after.

And my last concern is the neverending search for that magic pill that will make us live longer, younger, thinner, happier, etc., etc. Give me a break. Our health is up to us. Not some miracle pill. We can't just wish our problems away.

Sorry for such a rant, but these things get my back up big time.

;-Deb

To Debpenny,

I appreciate your skepticism! If you read the article it is interesting how this pill is doing calorie restriction by disrupting the Glucose pathway. So we LCers are actually doing this - reducing our glucose intake with our diet. As for the person you are talking about - you said it, we do not have enough information to know exactly what that person is doing overall. I saw on TV another guy that is doing calorie restriction and he is unbelievably thin. He seemed to be in good health. I agree with you in that I would rather not go extreme and just do it the way we are doing it with moderation. You know if they do perfect a magic pill then people can say well look at you - you had to make all those sacrifices to lose weight with Atkins and I just took this pill. The thing is those people's bodies will still have to process all the sugar garbage which causes other problems as we know. I have a friend who is looking for the magic pill and doesn't want to adhere to any diet (keeps fooling himself) he is taking the fat blocking pill - this pill you must do a low fat diet and excersize or you will have oily diahrea. He does not excersise or do low fat and complains that motor oil comes out you know where! Plus he keeps talking about the 10 lbs he lost 4 months ago.

Also as a sidenote. These doctors who wrote the article are cautious and this research is in a early stage. So if you can - read the whole article. My dermatologist is actually friends with one of them. I too get riled up by talk of magic pills and miracle cures! Keep up the good work and keep us posted on your pets. My wife belongs to a Cat club. They arrange cat shows!

Thanks, Gary. I did read the whole article. What bothers me is that they keep trying to apply animal results to people. That only works part way. There are differences between the species. It's like the study that proved that saturated fat is bad for us. That study was done on rabbits who are naturally vegetarians. Their systems are not made to deal with saturated fats the way meat eating species do. So of course they would have problems with it.

OK, back to rats. They are not carnivores as I said in my first post (I did some research ). They appear to be herbivores that occassionally like meat. All the more reason not to equate forced changes in their diets to equivalent changes in the human diet.

So this pill they are working on, if it works, will let all those people who are overeating carbs continue to eat those carbs with less glucose being absorbed and thus not raising their insulin level and becoming insulin resistant and all those things that follow. Good.

The problem is that they will still not be getting enough protein and fat to build up their bodies because they will still be eating carbs at the expense of protein and fat. That's our biggest benefit as low-carbers. They will lose some weight until their bodies figure out that they are starving themselves and go into starvation mode. They will continue to eat as much as they "want" but it won't be dong them any good and their bodies will figure that out. At least that's my take on it.

All the people who don't get it yet don't need a magic pill. We all need to eat what's best for our bodies, and since we have been lied to and bought into the low-fat/high-carb myth, we need the research and authoritative results to show us the way out of the low-fat morass.

And that's not to say that some people don't do quite well on a high-carb diet. It's just looking more and more like that group is not a very high percentage of the population.

One last thing and I'm done. That news piece about the guy who is starving himself: We may have seen the same one. It was not until the very end, after they had practically cannonized the guy for starving himself, that they said he has osteoporosis and other problems. And he was very thin. Too thin in my view. And one more thing they said about him: His libido had dropped to nothing. I feel sorry for his wife.

Gary, I'm glad they are doing the research. I think research is good in general. But I wish they would investigate the low-calories theory as it really pertains to humans before they go trying to duplicate a condition that appears to work in rats in humans. We are not rats.

;-Deb

Debpenny,

Just want to say well said. You have made some good points! Also thank you for reading the whole article and giving your input! These researchers have their work cut out for them!

Please enjoy your weekend!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm an anti-aging pill??? I think I will stick to agin with grace.. LOL... Besides don't people improve with age??? So if we take a pill to slow down we will always be the same right??? I'm 43 years old and have my mothers youthful genes so I'll just stick to the genes factor..

The idea of restricting calories to lengthen lifespan has also been discussed in this thread:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...&threadid=34740

This article shows that calorie restriction increased lifespan due to decreasing body temperature and blood insulin while increasing DHEAS levels. However, this article points out that these three things may be accomplished without restricting calories.



Health and Medicine Week
Publisher: CW Henderson
Issue: September 2, 2002
Page: 2

Aging
Three physiological measures linked to longevity in men

2002 SEP 2 - (NewsRx.com) -- Three physiological measures associated with long-term caloric restriction in monkeys have been linked to longevity in men, according to scientists at the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA).

It is the first finding to suggest a relationship between well-established biomarkers of caloric restriction in animals and extended longevity in humans who apparently do not stringently limit their caloric intake. The short correspondence appears in the August 2, 2002, issue of the journal Science.

The NIA investigators compared more than 700 healthy men, ages 19 to 95, who participated in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) with 60 rhesus monkeys, ages 5 to 25. The men were divided into two groups, based on whether they were in the upper or lower halves of the population for each of the three biomarkers - body temperature, blood insulin levels, and blood levels of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS).

The monkeys also were divided into two groups. One group was allowed to feed freely, typically consuming 500-1000 calories daily. A second group was fed a diet composed of at least 30% fewer calories than consumed by the unrestricted monkeys.

In previous work, calorically restricted mice and rats, which can live up to 40% longer than usual, have consistently had lower body temperatures and blood insulin levels than their freely fed counterparts. These two biomarkers also have been found in calorically restricted monkeys.

Caloric restriction also slows the decline of DHEAS, a steroid hormone that diminishes in monkeys and humans during normal aging. These three biomarkers suggest that caloric restriction causes metabolic shifts that may affect the rate of aging, said George Roth, PhD, senior guest scientist at the NIA and lead author of the new study.

After analyzing the age-adjusted data, the NIA investigators concluded that among men who participated in the BLSA, those who had lower body temperatures, had lower blood insulin levels or had higher blood levels of DHEAS as they aged tended to live longer. The calorically restricted monkeys showed a similar trend, and had half the death rate of monkeys allowed to feed freely. But this mortality data isn't yet statistically significant because few of the primates in either group have died, Roth said. However, none of the men, who reported consuming an average of 2300 calories daily, is believed to have been on a calorically restricted diet.

"The fact that these men apparently weren't practicing caloric restriction is important because it means there may be other ways to achieve biological hallmarks without having to undergo drastic dietary changes," Roth said. "Although we don't yet know what these pathways are, this finding suggests it may be possible to develop compounds that offer the benefits of caloric restriction without having to resort to it."

Biomarker and mortality data were collected on the men over a 25-year period, and biomarker data were gathered on the monkeys for 5 years beginning in 1987. Deaths among the monkeys have been tracked for more than 15 years. Biomarkers are indicators or measures of change in biological function of an organism. Gerontologists have long sought to find biomarkers of aging and longevity in humans that would help distinguish physiological age from chronological age.

This article was prepared by Health & Medicine Week editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2002, Health & Medicine Week via NewsRx.com.