Eat less and live longer?

It's been said that even if calorie restriction doesn't make you live longer it will feel as though you have. A Sydney University researcher argues that it does work and some of the current life-enhancing medications used to treat age-related diseases are imitating the effects of eating fewer calories.

Associate Professor Arthur Everitt of Sydney University's Centre for Education and Research on Ageing (CERA), says that evidence from animals shows that if you cut the calories they consume by 20 per cent you can prolong their lives by around 20 per cent. Even more encouraging if you look at the increases in human survival over the last 100 years, is that we've beaten these lab rats hands down.

"People in countries like Australia are living 60 per cent longer now than at the beginning of the twentieth century, and just in the last 30 years the introduction of medications to lower blood pressure and cholesterol have by themselves added five to ten years."

"Interestingly we may already be doing what works for these rats without realising it. Calorie restriction in rodents delays diseases of ageing and death itself. We don't have the same evidence in humans of actually prolonging life but we do know that people eating fewer calories have fewer risk factors for common diseases "“ things like high blood pressure, high blood fats and poor blood sugar control leading to diabetes. And that's exactly what these medications are doing even in people who aren't dieting.

"The point is that the idea which is about at the moment that a simple and cheap combination of medications for almost everyone of a certain age, might be the real elixir of youth, not to mention putting fewer calories on your plate," says Dr Everitt.