Losing pounds won’t gain you longevity

Alow-calorie diet can improve your overall health, immunity and metabolism. It may even help you squeeze into an outfit youve wanted to wear for years.

But, according to a recent study, reducing your caloric intake will not increase your life expectancy.

Nature recently published the results of a 23-year-long study conducted at the National Institute of Aging in Maryland. Researchers at the NIA theorized that specific, calorie-restricted diets might prolong life in rhesus monkeys. However, to researchers surprise, dieting rhesus monkeys did not live any longer than non-dieting subjects.

WHATS A CR DIET?

The NIA study,according to the report in Nature,analyzed two primary groups of monkeys: the first control group followed a normal, yet nutritionally balanced, diet. The second followed a calorie-restricted diet, commonly known as a CR diet, in whichcaloric intake dropped by 10 to 40 percent.

I think whats really important to recognize with full calorie restriction is were studying aging and the processes of aging, NIA researcher Julie Mattison said in a phone interview.

Were studying why everything goes bad over time, and its possible that CR affects a lot of these organs.

For years, it has been believed that CR diets prolong life and improve overall health and immunity, according to the CR Society website. CR diets were also thought to stall the onset of age and weight-related diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis and cancer.

Since the 1930s researchers have studied the benefits of CR diets in organisms such aslab rats, yeast, fruit flies and round worms. CR organisms in these studies, which often lived up to 30 to 50 percent longer than organisms with normal diets, prompted scientists to analyze the effects of CR diets in primates, including humans.

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Losing pounds won’t gain you longevity