Fasting, Aging, and Disease
Calorie restriction appears to promote longevity, but does this mean we should follow fasting protocols?
Not so fast
Fasting is all the rage right now. Eat only during allotted times and you’ll live forever, be cured of whatever ails you, and you’ll build muscle at the same time.
Right.
As you know, big claims should be approached with caution. (Especially when some people are making a lot of money promoting certain fasting protocols.)
Still, moderate calorie restriction (CR) is one of the longevity-promoting interventions that is well-validated in various animal models. However, there are some critics that raise a few important points. From this critique:
…the CR-related increase in longevity is not universal and may not even be shared among different strains of the same species. A further misgiving is that the control animals, fed ad libitum (AL), become overweight and prone to early onset of diseases and death, and thus may not be the ideal control animals… suggests that CR-related increase in life span of specific genotypes is directly related to the gain in body weight under the AL feeding regimen.
