This should make good reading for Brad Delong , Daniel Dsquared and me. Maybe we should found a new school: fatty economics. I'm still dreaming of Brad's Biryani with sour cream. In later life undoubtedly we will gravitate more towards the 'fat free economics' train of thought. My difficulty, since I'm an 'increasing returns' kinda person, is that I'm inclined to eat the dounle portions twice, once today and the other part tomorrow. Oh dear!
Eating double portions one day and nothing the next delivers the same health benefits to mice as seen in animals whose lifespan has been extended by restricting their calorie intake. No one is suggesting people adopt such a diet. But the study adds to the evidence that caloric restriction works by activating some kind of protective mechanism, rather than simply being a result of eating less and thus suffering less damage as food is metabolised. If this is the case, there may be ways to switch on the protective mechanism without going on a crazy diet.
Both calorie restriction and intermittent fasting prompt cells in the body to set up defences against stress that also protect against ageing and degenerative diseases, concludes team member Mark Mattson, at the US National Institute on Aging's Gerontology Research Center in Baltimore. These might be adaptations that benefited people in the past. "A three-meals-a-day diet only occurred recently in human evolution," he says. "Often we were probably forced to go days without food." But whether such a radical diet would benefit people now is not clear. Mice that start a restricted diet late in life do not always live longer. Furthermore, while occasional one-day fasts are thought to be harmless, they are not necessarily pleasant. "People feel tired, irritable and lethargic," says Alex Johnstone of the Rowett Research Institute in Scotland.
Source: New ScientistLINK
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