In a message dated 7/15/03 4:00:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Max Plyshevsky <
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 writes:

> About the caloric restriction experiments, it seems
> that they're feeding these animals "lab chow", which
> is far from a species appropriate diet. When you
> restrict inappropriate foods, mice live longer...
>
> Just my two cents,
> Max
>

A short time ago somebody (sorry- forgot who) pointed out that many people
following the CR diet in the strictest sense suffer from a variety of serious
health problems, such as fatigue, hormonal imbalances, anemia, and osteoporosis,
etc. Yes, many of them do, but as far as I am concerned, they are eating the
human equivalent of rat chow. They follow a very low fat, nearly (or sometimes
completely) vegetarian/Vegan diet, very high in complex carbohydrates such as
grains, beans and vegetables. Those of us on this list would hardly call that
a species appropriate diet! To be fair, there are some on the list who are
trying to do a sort of Paleo-CR lifestyle, and I imagine in the end they will
fare better than the low fat vegetarians.

As far as the Okinawans are concerned, I have my own theory, and that is that
they have an excellent genetic endowment, granting them a favorable longevity
advantage to begin with. Furthermore, I think their naturally small stature
combined with the availability of good quality food gives them an edge as well.
(Small people are more likely to live longer than large people- maybe this is
why women generally outlive men!)

It is also prudent to keep in mind that although they rank first among the
world's cultures in lifespan and number of centenarians, they are only months
ahead of a number of other very diverse peoples. I'm sorry I don't have the
exact statistics at hand, but if someone could help me out on this I'd appreciate
it. If it is the case, (and I believe I read this somewhere) that they live on
average only a few months longer than the next country behind them, it would
seem to be an exercise in ridiculous futility to focus on what it is that THEY
do as opposed to other long lived cultures with very different
lifestyles/eating habits.

We have seen the damage being done in Western countries, esp. the US, with
the skyrocketing rates of obesity and consequent health problems; it is not a
long leap to assume that eating less food would benefit most of us, and, indeed,
every caloric restriction experiment ever done on any species has borne this
out.

One last comment- I am still laughing from my realization that the acronym
for our Standard American Diet is the same as for Species Appropriate Diet!
LOL!!!!!

Maddy Mason
Hudson Valley, NY