Maybe dieting for long periods of time is healthier in some ways than stable weight...
This was the first article in Science News this week. Very interesting
article, and it may well be that regular dieting and weight loss is not such a bad thing -- it might even be better in some ways than maintaining a stable weight. Very interesting descriptions and the follow-ups will be intriguing. Yours, Caleb ************************************************** **** from: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070310/fob1.asp Week of March 10, 2007; Vol. 171, No. 10 , p. 147 Living Long on Less? Mouse and human cells respond to slim diets Patrick L. Barry Scientists have known since the 1930s that mice and other animals live 30 to 50 percent longer when placed on a diet that's low in calories yet nutritionally complete. The unanswered question has been whether calorie restriction has the same life-extending effect on people. Direct proof of a payoff for human longevity would take decades. But scientists have now shown that people on a calorie-restricted diet experience many of the cellular changes reported in mouse studies. "The experimental results [in mice] mirror the results we found," says Anthony E. Civitarese of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. Whether those changes would extend a person's life remains uncertain, he notes. As people get older, energy-converting organelles called mitochondria decrease in number and generate greater amounts of harmful by-products called free radicals. Many scientists hypothesize that DNA damage from these by-products can cause chronic diseases of old age such as cancer. Civitarese and his colleagues randomly assigned 36 overweight people to one of three groups. The first group was instructed to follow a diet with 25 percent fewer calories than the individuals' initial energy expenditures. Each participant in the second group followed a diet with 12.5 percent fewer calories than he or she had initially expended, while exercising to burn another 12.5 percent. Both diets contained adequate nutrition. People in the third group ate a weight- maintenance diet, the researchers report in the March PLoS Medicine. During the 6-month study, participants in both calorie-restricted groups showed a 20 to 35 percent increase in the number of mitochondria in their muscle cells and a 60 percent decrease in DNA damage. The mitochondria appeared to become more youthful and efficient. People in the calorie-restricted groups also showed increased activity of several genes related to mitochondrial function. Scientists have long considered one of these genes, SIRT1, to be crucial for animals' responses to calorie restriction. "Not only is it a good study, but it's the only kind that we can do" practically, comments David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School in Boston. Several companies, including one cofounded by Sinclair, are developing drugs to activate SIRT1. "It's exciting to see SIRT1 in the middle of this," says Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a cofounder of a competing company. However, he says that interpretation of the results of the Baton Rouge study is limited because the participants were overweight, a condition that can accelerate tissue aging. The researchers enrolled overweight people in part because they would be motivated to follow a strict diet, Civitarese says. His team is planning a test that will focus on people of normal body weight and last 2 years. |
Maybe dieting for long periods of time is healthier in some ways than stable weight...
"Caleb" wrote:
This was the first article in Science News this week. Very interesting article, and it may well be that regular dieting and weight loss is not such a bad thing -- it might even be better in some ways than maintaining a stable weight. With a misrepresentation like your subject line, no wonder you are called a troll and blown off by many. The permanent lifelong calorie restriction shown cause longer lifespans in mice and many other types of animals is absolutely NOT related to your history of yoyo dieting. It *does* result in a stable weight for the simple reason that it never ends until the subject animal dies. You find a way to stay low calorie unendlingly for the rest of your life without a pattern of yoyoing and you may well accure the same benefits as the mice. And just for fun, check out the level of caloric restriction imposed on those mice. Is it a level that triggers rapid loss or slow loss? Oh right. It's a level that triggers slow loss. What I found interesting - If the mice are put on low calorie after they are adults, it still seems to work. |
Maybe dieting for long periods of time is healthier in some ways than stable weight...
On Mar 16, 8:57 am, "Doug Freyburger" wrote:
"Caleb" wrote: This was the first article in Science News this week. Very interesting article, and it may well be that regular dieting and weight loss is not such a bad thing -- it might even be better in some ways than maintaining a stable weight. With a misrepresentation like your subject line, no wonder you are called a troll and blown off by many. The permanent lifelong calorie restriction shown cause longer lifespans in mice and many other types of animals is absolutely NOT related to your history of yoyo dieting. It *does* result in a stable weight for the simple reason that it never ends until the subject animal dies. You find a way to stay low calorie unendlingly for the rest of your life without a pattern of yoyoing and you may well accure the same benefits as the mice. And just for fun, check out the level of caloric restriction imposed on those mice. Is it a level that triggers rapid loss or slow loss? Oh right. It's a level that triggers slow loss. What I found interesting - If the mice are put on low calorie after they are adults, it still seems to work. Doug -- There are many questions that spring from this research. Bottom line -- we just don't know. Mark Mattson, PhD, neuroscientist, said that eating every other day appears to convey to mice and rats a resistance to the effects of head injuries, alzheimers like events, etc. He is engaged in human studies now. These two lines of research suggest that calorie restriction (and certainly not eating to maintenance multiple times in the course of a day) may be more healthy than three squareas a day, 5 lighter meals a day, etc. Further there is something in actually going for longer periods of time without eating that may be health-inducing. Overall such research helps remind people that just because some people "know" certain things, that doesn't make them true. The article also notes that overweight is a condition that can accelerate tissue aging. So clearly I dunno the final outcome. I guess you're quibbling with the word "maybe" in the header of this post. Seems to me to be a reasonable qualifier for the speculation. I'm sure not advocating weight fluctuations in people but neither do I think they are necessarily worse than cancer, etc. And clearly this current research suggests that there may be some advantages to periods of losing weight. People on this list have often bemoaned loss of muscle, increased lassitude, etc., but this is a very interesting byproduct of this weight loss process. Within the evolutionary framework, perhaps organisms have been favored that accomodate intermittent food sources, that would be able to eat a lot and then shut down their bodies for a while to allow them to improve aspects of their functioning. Certainly this is compatible with the findings of Mattson and also the more recent findings I cited above. Also this is compatible with the real world. 4000 years ago food was a pretty iffy thing, and it remains so in many portions of the world today. If stable weight were a requirement for longevity, the human race would have died out long ago. Am I claiming that these are strong effects? No, not at all and certainly not at this point. But they certainly question the basis of continuous eating. The above research suggests that this is another reason to lose weight through calorie restriction (be it lowered calorie, Atkins, Zone, etc., etc.). But I think we should remember Hamlet's words to Horatio: "There are many things between heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Yours, Caleb |
Maybe dieting for long periods of time is healthier in some ways than stable weight...
On Mar 16, 9:45 am, "Caleb" wrote:
Snip But I think we should remember Hamlet's words to Horatio: "There are many things between heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Yours, Caleb Oops! I omitted a word ("more") and found Hamlet's words on the Internet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Yours, Caleb |
Maybe dieting for long periods of time is healthier in some ways than stable weight...
Muscle loss and other "bad effects" of weight loss are discussed here as a
result of abnormally fast weight loss... not as a result of weight loss in itself.. "Caleb" wrote in message oups.com... On Mar 16, 8:57 am, "Doug Freyburger" wrote: "Caleb" wrote: This was the first article in Science News this week. Very interesting article, and it may well be that regular dieting and weight loss is not such a bad thing -- it might even be better in some ways than maintaining a stable weight. With a misrepresentation like your subject line, no wonder you are called a troll and blown off by many. The permanent lifelong calorie restriction shown cause longer lifespans in mice and many other types of animals is absolutely NOT related to your history of yoyo dieting. It *does* result in a stable weight for the simple reason that it never ends until the subject animal dies. You find a way to stay low calorie unendlingly for the rest of your life without a pattern of yoyoing and you may well accure the same benefits as the mice. And just for fun, check out the level of caloric restriction imposed on those mice. Is it a level that triggers rapid loss or slow loss? Oh right. It's a level that triggers slow loss. What I found interesting - If the mice are put on low calorie after they are adults, it still seems to work. Doug -- There are many questions that spring from this research. Bottom line -- we just don't know. Mark Mattson, PhD, neuroscientist, said that eating every other day appears to convey to mice and rats a resistance to the effects of head injuries, alzheimers like events, etc. He is engaged in human studies now. These two lines of research suggest that calorie restriction (and certainly not eating to maintenance multiple times in the course of a day) may be more healthy than three squareas a day, 5 lighter meals a day, etc. Further there is something in actually going for longer periods of time without eating that may be health-inducing. Overall such research helps remind people that just because some people "know" certain things, that doesn't make them true. The article also notes that overweight is a condition that can accelerate tissue aging. So clearly I dunno the final outcome. I guess you're quibbling with the word "maybe" in the header of this post. Seems to me to be a reasonable qualifier for the speculation. I'm sure not advocating weight fluctuations in people but neither do I think they are necessarily worse than cancer, etc. And clearly this current research suggests that there may be some advantages to periods of losing weight. People on this list have often bemoaned loss of muscle, increased lassitude, etc., but this is a very interesting byproduct of this weight loss process. Within the evolutionary framework, perhaps organisms have been favored that accomodate intermittent food sources, that would be able to eat a lot and then shut down their bodies for a while to allow them to improve aspects of their functioning. Certainly this is compatible with the findings of Mattson and also the more recent findings I cited above. Also this is compatible with the real world. 4000 years ago food was a pretty iffy thing, and it remains so in many portions of the world today. If stable weight were a requirement for longevity, the human race would have died out long ago. Am I claiming that these are strong effects? No, not at all and certainly not at this point. But they certainly question the basis of continuous eating. The above research suggests that this is another reason to lose weight through calorie restriction (be it lowered calorie, Atkins, Zone, etc., etc.). But I think we should remember Hamlet's words to Horatio: "There are many things between heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Yours, Caleb |
Maybe dieting for long periods of time is healthier in some ways than stable weight...
On Mar 16, 1:15 pm, "Willow Herself"
wrote: Muscle loss and other "bad effects" of weight loss are discussed here as a result of abnormally fast weight loss... not as a result of weight loss in itself.. "Caleb" wrote in message oups.com... On Mar 16, 8:57 am, "Doug Freyburger" wrote: "Caleb" wrote: This was the first article in Science News this week. Very interesting article, and it may well be that regular dieting and weight loss is not such a bad thing -- it might even be better in some ways than maintaining a stable weight. With a misrepresentation like your subject line, no wonder you are called a troll and blown off by many. The permanent lifelong calorie restriction shown cause longer lifespans in mice and many other types of animals is absolutely NOT related to your history of yoyo dieting. It *does* result in a stable weight for the simple reason that it never ends until the subject animal dies. You find a way to stay low calorie unendlingly for the rest of your life without a pattern of yoyoing and you may well accure the same benefits as the mice. And just for fun, check out the level of caloric restriction imposed on those mice. Is it a level that triggers rapid loss or slow loss? Oh right. It's a level that triggers slow loss. What I found interesting - If the mice are put on low calorie after they are adults, it still seems to work. Doug -- There are many questions that spring from this research. Bottom line -- we just don't know. Mark Mattson, PhD, neuroscientist, said that eating every other day appears to convey to mice and rats a resistance to the effects of head injuries, alzheimers like events, etc. He is engaged in human studies now. These two lines of research suggest that calorie restriction (and certainly not eating to maintenance multiple times in the course of a day) may be more healthy than three squareas a day, 5 lighter meals a day, etc. Further there is something in actually going for longer periods of time without eating that may be health-inducing. Overall such research helps remind people that just because some people "know" certain things, that doesn't make them true. The article also notes that overweight is a condition that can accelerate tissue aging. So clearly I dunno the final outcome. I guess you're quibbling with the word "maybe" in the header of this post. Seems to me to be a reasonable qualifier for the speculation. I'm sure not advocating weight fluctuations in people but neither do I think they are necessarily worse than cancer, etc. And clearly this current research suggests that there may be some advantages to periods of losing weight. People on this list have often bemoaned loss of muscle, increased lassitude, etc., but this is a very interesting byproduct of this weight loss process. Within the evolutionary framework, perhaps organisms have been favored that accomodate intermittent food sources, that would be able to eat a lot and then shut down their bodies for a while to allow them to improve aspects of their functioning. Certainly this is compatible with the findings of Mattson and also the more recent findings I cited above. Also this is compatible with the real world. 4000 years ago food was a pretty iffy thing, and it remains so in many portions of the world today. If stable weight were a requirement for longevity, the human race would have died out long ago. Am I claiming that these are strong effects? No, not at all and certainly not at this point. But they certainly question the basis of continuous eating. The above research suggests that this is another reason to lose weight through calorie restriction (be it lowered calorie, Atkins, Zone, etc., etc.). But I think we should remember Hamlet's words to Horatio: "There are many things between heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Yours, Caleb Willow -- Thanks for the clarification! I guess this article also supports the proposition that if one is overweight, one should lose the weight, rather than than maintaining it. That is, there seems to be a positive effect of an important type in restricting one's calories. Whether or not weight gain has a greater negative impact on the cellular activity than weight loss has a positive effect is not clear. I'd really like to see animal research results on these topics, as well as human research. Many football players put on and lose a lot of weight each year -- 30 to 40 pound yearly fluctuations are not that uncommon among the big players, I believe. It would be interesting to replicate this research on them. Yours, Caleb |
Maybe dieting for long periods of time is healthier in some ways than stable weight...
On Mar 16, 12:09 am, "Caleb" wrote:
This was the first article in Science News this week. Very interesting article, and it may well be that regular dieting and weight loss is not such a bad thing -- it might even be better in some ways than maintaining a stable weight. Very interesting descriptions and the follow-ups will be intriguing. Yours, Caleb ************************************************** **** from:http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070310/fob1.asp Week of March 10, 2007; Vol. 171, No. 10 , p. 147 Living Long on Less? Mouse and human cells respond to slim diets Patrick L. Barry Scientists have known since the 1930s that mice and other animals live 30 to 50 percent longer when placed on a diet that's low in calories yet nutritionally complete. The unanswered question has been whether calorie restriction has the same life-extending effect on people. Direct proof of a payoff for human longevity would take decades. But scientists have now shown that people on a calorie-restricted diet experience many of the cellular changes reported in mouse studies. "The experimental results [in mice] mirror the results we found," says Anthony E. Civitarese of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. Whether those changes would extend a person's life remains uncertain, he notes. As people get older, energy-converting organelles called mitochondria decrease in number and generate greater amounts of harmful by-products called free radicals. Many scientists hypothesize that DNA damage from these by-products can cause chronic diseases of old age such as cancer. Civitarese and his colleagues randomly assigned 36 overweight people to one of three groups. The first group was instructed to follow a diet with 25 percent fewer calories than the individuals' initial energy expenditures. Each participant in the second group followed a diet with 12.5 percent fewer calories than he or she had initially expended, while exercising to burn another 12.5 percent. Both diets contained adequate nutrition. People in the third group ate a weight- maintenance diet, the researchers report in the March PLoS Medicine. During the 6-month study, participants in both calorie-restricted groups showed a 20 to 35 percent increase in the number of mitochondria in their muscle cells and a 60 percent decrease in DNA damage. The mitochondria appeared to become more youthful and efficient. People in the calorie-restricted groups also showed increased activity of several genes related to mitochondrial function. Scientists have long considered one of these genes, SIRT1, to be crucial for animals' responses to calorie restriction. "Not only is it a good study, but it's the only kind that we can do" practically, comments David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School in Boston. Several companies, including one cofounded by Sinclair, are developing drugs to activate SIRT1. "It's exciting to see SIRT1 in the middle of this," says Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a cofounder of a competing company. However, he says that interpretation of the results of the Baton Rouge study is limited because the participants were overweight, a condition that can accelerate tissue aging. The researchers enrolled overweight people in part because they would be motivated to follow a strict diet, Civitarese says. His team is planning a test that will focus on people of normal body weight and last 2 years. Too much of a good thing, might not be good overall however. The mice in question living longer is one thing, but the kind of restriction they use for mice can result in decreased development, including smaller BRAIN size. That is not one trade off most people would chose for living longer. Probably, a restrictive diet is ok for adults though as long as you are within the healthy medical weight range for your height. Some of us even feel it might be best to be near the bottom of that range, but like you say we won't know the answer to that until after many years of study. dkw |
Maybe dieting for long periods of time is healthier in some ways than stable weight...
On Mar 18, 10:50 am, " wrote:
On Mar 16, 12:09 am, "Caleb" wrote: This was the first article in Science News this week. Very interesting article, and it may well be that regular dieting and weight loss is not such a bad thing -- it might even be better in some ways than maintaining a stable weight. Very interesting descriptions and the follow-ups will be intriguing. Yours, Caleb ************************************************** **** from:http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070310/fob1.asp Week of March 10, 2007; Vol. 171, No. 10 , p. 147 Living Long on Less? Mouse and human cells respond to slim diets Patrick L. Barry Scientists have known since the 1930s that mice and other animals live 30 to 50 percent longer when placed on a diet that's low in calories yet nutritionally complete. The unanswered question has been whether calorie restriction has the same life-extending effect on people. Direct proof of a payoff for human longevity would take decades. But scientists have now shown that people on a calorie-restricted diet experience many of the cellular changes reported in mouse studies. "The experimental results [in mice] mirror the results we found," says Anthony E. Civitarese of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. Whether those changes would extend a person's life remains uncertain, he notes. As people get older, energy-converting organelles called mitochondria decrease in number and generate greater amounts of harmful by-products called free radicals. Many scientists hypothesize that DNA damage from these by-products can cause chronic diseases of old age such as cancer. Civitarese and his colleagues randomly assigned 36 overweight people to one of three groups. The first group was instructed to follow a diet with 25 percent fewer calories than the individuals' initial energy expenditures. Each participant in the second group followed a diet with 12.5 percent fewer calories than he or she had initially expended, while exercising to burn another 12.5 percent. Both diets contained adequate nutrition. People in the third group ate a weight- maintenance diet, the researchers report in the March PLoS Medicine. During the 6-month study, participants in both calorie-restricted groups showed a 20 to 35 percent increase in the number of mitochondria in their muscle cells and a 60 percent decrease in DNA damage. The mitochondria appeared to become more youthful and efficient. People in the calorie-restricted groups also showed increased activity of several genes related to mitochondrial function. Scientists have long considered one of these genes, SIRT1, to be crucial for animals' responses to calorie restriction. "Not only is it a good study, but it's the only kind that we can do" practically, comments David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School in Boston. Several companies, including one cofounded by Sinclair, are developing drugs to activate SIRT1. "It's exciting to see SIRT1 in the middle of this," says Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a cofounder of a competing company. However, he says that interpretation of the results of the Baton Rouge study is limited because the participants were overweight, a condition that can accelerate tissue aging. The researchers enrolled overweight people in part because they would be motivated to follow a strict diet, Civitarese says. His team is planning a test that will focus on people of normal body weight and last 2 years. Too much of a good thing, might not be good overall however. The mice in question living longer is one thing, but the kind of restriction they use for mice can result in decreased development, including smaller BRAIN size. That is not one trade off most people would chose for living longer. Probably, a restrictive diet is ok for adults though as long as you are within the healthy medical weight range for your height. Some of us even feel it might be best to be near the bottom of that range, but like you say we won't know the answer to that until after many years of study. dkw DKW -- Good observations! It's amazing what we don't know -- or what we know that just ain't so. Yours, Caleb |
Maybe dieting for long periods of time is healthier in some ways than stable weight...
On Mar 16, 11:57 am, "Doug Freyburger" wrote:
"Caleb" wrote: This was the first article in Science News this week. Very interesting article, and it may well be that regular dieting and weight loss is not such a bad thing -- it might even be better in some ways than maintaining a stable weight. With a misrepresentation like your subject line, no wonder you are called a troll and blown off by many. The permanent lifelong calorie restriction shown cause longer lifespans in mice and many other types of animals is absolutely NOT related to your history of yoyo dieting. It *does* result in a stable weight for the simple reason that it never ends until the subject animal dies. I don't know who's right here Doug. I am 76 and lost over 80 pounds over seven years ago. I was a little too thin as you can see from the after pix and am up a very few pounds feom there and that is where I hang (I do hang in spots LOL) http://www.angelfire.com/on4/diva_dog/ I also lost height from osteoporosis. I have to stay within 1200 calories (balanced) to maintain my current weight) If I move upo to 1500 I tend to gain but am stable using 1200. Using an exercise bike and entering calories burned from other exercise, it sure takes a lot to compensate for say 200 additional calories a day! Diva 219/140 |
Maybe dieting for long periods of time is healthier in some ways than stable weight...
On Apr 9, 4:38 am, "Diva" wrote:
On Mar 16, 11:57 am, "Doug Freyburger" wrote: "Caleb" wrote: This was the first article in Science News this week. Very interesting article, and it may well be that regular dieting and weight loss is not such a bad thing -- it might even be better in some ways than maintaining a stable weight. With a misrepresentation like your subject line, no wonder you are called a troll and blown off by many. The permanent lifelong calorie restriction shown cause longer lifespans in mice and many other types of animals is absolutely NOT related to your history of yoyo dieting. It *does* result in a stable weight for the simple reason that it never ends until the subject animal dies. I don't know who's right here Doug. I am 76 and lost over 80 pounds over seven years ago. I was a little too thin as you can see from the after pix and am up a very few pounds feom there and that is where I hang (I do hang in spots LOL) http://www.angelfire.com/on4/diva_dog/ I also lost height from osteoporosis. I have to stay within 1200 calories (balanced) to maintain my current weight) If I move upo to 1500 I tend to gain but am stable using 1200. Using an exercise bike and entering calories burned from other exercise, it sure takes a lot to compensate for say 200 additional calories a day! Diva 219/140 Diva -- Great for you! Also you see 1200 as not something unfair but as a good goal. And you have the numbers to prove it! Excellent work and superb self-control!!! Supah! Yours, Caleb |
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