Calorie restriction falters in the long run

                                   Genetics and healthy diets matter more for longevity.

        In today’s day and age we hear all types of ways to lose weight and the benefits of this. How do we achieve this and what are the positives and negatives of this? In this article they may not necessarily state exactly how to achieve this but, they do discuss the importance of what type of calories we do take in. To quote “When we began these studies, the dogma was that a calorie is a calorie,” Ingram says. “I think it’s clear that the types of calories the monkeys ate made a profound difference” (Ingram from NIA studies).  Granted these studies were on monkeys but these studies do show that if we take in “crap calories” this will be the result. Some may take in fewer calories but in the long run this doesn’t exactly matter in the long run, the types of calories and our genetics matter more.

                They state the in a twenty-five year study from NIA (the National Institute on Aging) that they thought if they fed these monkeys thirty percent less than the control group the monkeys may physically age slower but, instead they learned that the amount of calories isn’t nearly as important as the type of calories.

                “To think that a simple decrease in calories caused such a widespread change, that was   

               remarkable,” says Don Ingram, a gerontologist at Louisiana State University in Baton                     

                 Rouge, who designed the study almost three decades ago while at the National Institute  

                on Aging (NIA) in Bethesda, Maryland. (http://www.nature.com/news/calorie-restriction-

                falters-in-the-long-run-1.11297)

                 While in another study that started in 1989 and ended in 2009 for the National Primate Research Center (WNPRC) had shown that the calorie restriction did make a difference. The reason for this is, because they were given a poor diet. So the animals given a restriction only seemed healthier by comparison. This group was also given an unlimited amount which can have a profound effect.

                Overall the NIA group had better results because not only were all the monkeys’ on somewhat of a restricted diet but the sucrose in their diet was 3.9%, while at WNPRC monkeys’ diets contained 28.5% sucrose. The WNPRC was not given fish oil like the NIA and the WNPRC control group is heavier than the NIA control group.  While when researchers do calorie restrictions on mice they have a tendency of getting mixed results due to genetics, they believe this could have also been a contributing factor since the monkeys used in the NIA studies were from China and India while the monkeys’ used in the WNPRC studies were just from India.

                All in all it’s complicated to say in the least. As for humans studies have shown that those who are of average weight live longer. Personally, I will take my chances on the healthier diet because likeNir Barzilai, a gerontologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, says that the centenarians he studies have led him to believe that genetics is more important than diet and lifestyle. “They’re a chubby bunch,” he says.As I partially agree with him I personally believe that if you watch what you put in your body and the type of calories that will help as well that the centenarians he studies have led him to believe that genetics is more important than diet and lifestyle. “They’re a chubby bunch,” he says. As I partially agree with him I personally believe that if you watch what you put in your body and the type of calories that will help as well