>Douglas said:
>>I'm only focused on temp., which is probably about the best
> way to get a quick grasp of the success or failure of a
> life-extension regimen, as is the cancer incidence.

>I do not see the merit of taking one indicator out of context
> and relying on it exclusively, and it is not uncommon for  people
> with low body temperatures to die at an early age. The same argument
> can probably be made for each of the other longevity indicators
> and by doing that  I think you are missing the whole picture.

I sort of agree, but what I mean is that all the biomarkers are
likely to go up & down in concert, & that temp. is simply the very
best (& about the easiest to monitor) at predicting the eventual age
at death.  There is every reason to believe that a healthy person
who undergoes CR & thus lowers his temp. is going to do just fine,
in contrast with somebody who has an underlying pathology which
keeps temp. low for entirely different reasons.

>>Bob Avery is the one who is
>>focused also on pulse rate, but I believe temp. & pulse will
> track each other fairly closely.  The other markers you list of
> course have well-known correlations with age, but the sorts of
> things Bob & I are talking about are quick, cheap ways to monitor how
> well changes in your diet or whatever are impacting your aging
> rate.

>>Lots of work has been done on CR's impact on glucose levels
> in particular, but I believe that most of those you mentioned
> have been scrutinized.

>I doubt that they all will always correlate with low body
> temp.and that practicing moderation is prudent also when it comes to
> calorie restriction.

There is every reason to expect that the more drastic the CR, the
better for lifespan.  (This assumes that you get adequate nutrition
of everything you need, not just calories.)  As long as you reach a
stable weight plateau & do not continue to lose, you should do fine.
 Indeed, I think there is a lot which indicates that cyclically
fasting/starving down below a no-body-fat-level & then going back up
to a certain weight will actually rejuventate you to some degree.


>Peter said:
>>> I am curious to know if you or anyone else on calorie
> restrictive diets have undergone any comprehensive panels of biomarker
> testing to establish your actual, biological age.

>Douglas said:
>>Be aware that I don't subscribe to a notion of either
> biological age or lifespan.  I believe that there are PROBABILITIES that if
> you do this or that your life will be X number of years long, but
> that is about as far as I would go. There are just too many
> individual variables for these sorts of things to apply to anything
> other than average people, not individuals.

>I agree, but if you cannot pass the test applied to the average person,
>how do you expect to make the grades for the individual test?

Peter, I do not understand the question (or maybe you don't
understand me).  What I mean is that there is absolutely no way for
us to know what will grant each of us maximal lifespan, as there are
just too many (almost an infinite number) variables, & we know too
little about the whole thing.  The best we can do is make educated
guesses based on what seems to work best for large numbers of people
(or other animals).

>Douglas said:
>>There is a great deal of confusion about death.
>>People do not die of old age.  They die of disease, the
> failure of organs, trauma or a breakdown of a metabolic pathway.  I
> have seen person after person die "young," looking far younger than
> their chronological ages.  I lost an uncle 6 weeks ago to cancer
> at age 84.  But he was a very youthful 84: smooth skin, active
> golfer & could easily have passed for 65.  He did not die of old age,
> he died of a specific disease, which, if he had avoided it, he would
> have doubtless gone on for many more years until some other
> disease or whatever got him.

Peter:
>Diseases like cancer are not  separate entities from
> biological age but an intrinsic part of it. Your uncle might have looked
> youthful, but his biological age was probably that of somebody 114 rather than
> 84..

I think your first sentence above is a great way to put it, but your
second sentence I don't really agree with.  As we age the
probabilities of this or that disease doing us in increase
exponentially, until the odds approach certainly that one will
actually suceed.  I'm sort of an agnostic on the whole notion of
biological age: I sort of think it exists, but the fact is that you
can be young in all sorts of ways (& young way beyond what your
calendrical age is) but old in just one way, the way which kills
you.  I've seen guys who were not all that old looking at 63 or
whatever teeter on the brink of death from heart disease, recover, &
then go on to live a lot longer.  If they had died at 63, I would
not call them "old" when they died, only that they died "young" from
a specific disease.  I think it is reasonable to state that
everybody dies young to some degree, & that they die of a specific
disease.  I'm concerned about preventing various causes of death,
whether they be cancer (or prostate cancer specifically) or kidney
failure or whatever, & I try to take steps to insure against this or
that cause of death.  These things all add up to increased odds of
living longer.  I'm also attempting to slow the entire rate of
aging, & by the way body temp. lowering appears to be the single
best way of doing this (and caloric & protein restriction & a raw
diet appears to be the best way to lower temp.).

>Douglas said:

>>Raw combined with CR should really be a powerful life extender.

>Probably, but only to a limit.  If you only monitor one biomarker like
>your temp. the danger is that you will not know when/if you
> exceed your limits on the others, and you could end up slowly starving
> yourself.

I think that all you need to worry about is simply whether your
weight keeps dropping (& even if it does I think there may be great
life-extension benefits from going down to a skeletal condition).
There are ways to insure adequate nutrition (including supplements)
of the essential items in the diet in addition to simple calories.

>Furthermore, if you are feeling deprived and somewhat
> obsessed about your diet, it might be difficult to have a good attitude &
> passion for life, which IMO are equally important factors to health &
> longevity.  Iknow some of the rodents(or was it primates?) that were on
> calorie programs were found to be quite depressed.  You might say
> this is not the case for you,  but it requires more calories to being
> deeply involved and passionate about ones life than to be in a
> passive state of  lethargy.

You are quite correct, and lethargy/zombieville is one of the side
effects.  (See "Men & Hunger" which relates the results of the WWII
human starvation experiments & particularly the psychological
effects.)  Everybody has to decide for themselves what their
priorities are.  I pointed out on the CR list the pschological
negatives, & the great thing was a few guys (guys of my height but
about 10-15 lbs. skinnier--see my stats. below) said nah, we don't
view these as a unwarranted trade-off in exchange for extended
lives.  They used to think that highly CRed rodents were much more
active than fully-fed subjects, until they monitored them
clandestinely & found that they just got real jumpy when humans
entered the room since they expected to be fed.  The rest of the
time they were subdued.  But as everybody who has fasted knows, it
is possible for the body to be lethargic while the mind is hopped
up.  It is also possible for both to be zonked out in concert.
[Most people will recognize their boss in the last sentence: dumb &
lazy.]  In general, you can state that CR will usually have more
positive effects on mental alertness than negative effects.

I wrote:
>>And I wonder about minerals in meats.  I have no idea
> whether their absorption is superior to plant foods, but this may not be
> good because it brings in stuff herbivores are not adapted to
> efficiently remove excesses of.  Calcium is a big-time factor in aging,
> & I wonder if meat-derived calcium (or cooked calcium) is not
> properly handled in the body.

Peter:
>Again, if this was a legitimate concern one would expect
> mineral problems among native peoples and yet the opposite seems to
> be the norm.

Again, this gets back to how do you define health, is it simply the
apparent absence of disease or is it the prolongation of the killer
diseases into well into the later years.  I'm convinced that meat
and/or cooked eaters would on average live a lot longer without
these foods.

Me:
>>as a mailman & walk about 10 miles +/- up & down stairs 5
> days/week. I can state without hesitation that this is not doing me any
> good, & can definitely feel the impact this has on my body (I'm not
> talking joints or anything like that here, I'm referring to just the
> impact of the energy expenditure this requires).  It also requires
> a considerably greater caloric intake than if I was lethargic.

>You are obviously not living your lethargic ideal at the
> moment.  What is the longest period you  have ever practiced a low-calorie,
> lethargic lifestyle?  I would be interested to know what your
> biomarkers, other than temp., would say and to know how you were feeling
>during such a period.

I've been into NH for about 17 years, & practicing CR for a good
part of that time.  I'm not on anything like a stable caloric
intake, sometimes I'm more restricted that other times.  One thing I
do try to do is practice intermittent eating, which in practice
means I skip breakfast & lunch.  Intermittent eating is almost as
effect as CR in extending life.  If I got my act together more, I
would do what Roy Walford does: fast 2 consecutive days each week
too, in addition to CR on the other 5 days.  I try to do a long fast
every winter, down to the point of hunger return (about 129-130 lbs,
& I'm 6'1").  At that point I have pretty much depleted the fat in
the pads of my feet & hands.  This winter I may try to over-fast for
the first time, going a little past the point of hunger return if my
schedule & things work out OK. The rest of the time my weight is
usually between 135-140 if I'm a good boy.  My awakening temp. is
usally around 97.1° if I behave, resting pulse around 54.  I don't
know my waking BP, but in the afternoon (when it is probably near
its peak) it is usually around 90/60.  My karma is usually about
16.3, +/- 2.4 karmic units.  Right now I have intentionally raised
my body fat a little (& my cat's too) as I work outside in New
England in the winter & don't really heat that much in the house (I
was lying in bed this morning watching my breath rise).
Psychologically I don't usally have a problem, although when long
fasting it can get a little too zombie at times.  If I had my
druthers, I would live near the equator, exercise almost nil, eat
much fewer calories as a result, & from time to time go zombie & get
down to a skeletal condition.  Why do I sense that there is not
anybody reading this who thinks this is a really cool idea?

--Doug Schwartz
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