In a message dated 9/14/03 5:40:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Rick and Linda
Strong <[log in to unmask] writes:

> >Calorie restriction is not healthy.
>
> Whoa! Slow down here. This is a blanket statement which has no basis in
> reality. Calorie restriction experiments have been going on for the better part
> of a century, and have been proven to extend youth/life in every single
> organism ever tested, from single celled yeasts all the way up to various primates.
>
>
> Anorexia, by definition, is a form of calorie restriction. And few would
> argue that anorexia is healthy. Calorie restriction merely means restricting
> calories. It says nothing about the makeup of the calories that are still
> consumed, or how severe the restriction is, or for how long, or when it was begun.
>
> >Roy Walford, the leading proponent, was recently diagnosed with Lou
> Gehrig's Disease,
> Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). So much for the CR diet preventing
> chronic degenerative disease.
>
> Yes, Roy Walford is one of the leading proponents, and I have read his book,
> Beyond the 120 Year Diet. I have read the CR mailing list intermittently for
> years. I think I can say with fairly good accuracy, that Walford and nearly
> all of his followers are about as far from Paleo as one can get. They tend to
> follow a nearly, or totally vegetarian diet; many are Vegan. They eat very
> high fiber, high grain and legume, very low fat. Many on the list suffer from
> fatigue, lethargy, low sex drive, depression, and worse, serious
> osteoporosis. To blame all of this on the number of calories consumed ("calorie
> restriction is unhealthy") with no regard to the makeup of the diet, is erroneous.
>
> Anyone who is overweight and loses that extra weight is practicing some form
> of calorie restriction. Even with Dr. Atkins "metabolic advantage" of a low
> carb diet, calories have to be reduced SOMEWHAT to lose weight, for most
> people. So just restricting calories alone doesn't constitute "unhealthy." Who
> would argue that losing excess weight (done by healthy means) is unhealthy? In
> fact, according to Walford, it is not how much one weighs, but how many
> calories one consumes in relation to what one needs to maintain one's "setpoint"
> that determines the life extension benefits of CR. So a 150 pound man of
> "normal" size who eats 2500 calories and maintains his weight, would not be
> practicing CR, whereas a 200 pound man (of the same height, build and muscular
> structure, and the same activity level) who can eat only 2000 calories a day in
> order to lose weight, loses down to 150 pounds, and can eat only 2000 calories
> a day to maintain his weight, WOULD be in a CR state. (This makes sense from
> a Paleo perspective, because in the Stone Age, those who could gain weight
> easily would have had a survival advantage during lean times over their
> naturally thin brethren.)

Furthermore, CR sure does become unhealthy, once one crosses the threshold
into starvation. It could be that many of the sick practitioners just do not get
enough calories.

And to play devil's advocate here, it must be pointed out that nobody has any
way of knowing if Walford would have developed ALS many years sooner if he
had not been practicing CR. I don't believe he practiced a very severe form of
CR anyway.

Lastly it must be pointed out that ALS is an autoimmune disease. Anyone
suffering from undiagnosed Celiac Disease (gluten intolerance) is susceptible to
develop any other autoimmune disease with far greater frequency than in the
general population. (Ray Audette, author of Neanderthin, cured himself of
Rheumatoid Arthritis when he switched to a Paleo diet. (This, of course, entailed the
exclusion of all grains and therefore gluten.) Who knows- maybe Walford's a
Celiac!

I can't back this up with a reference, but I do remember reading somewhere
that Stephen Hawking enjoyed a flourless cake on his birthday. He has survived
with ALS longer than almost anyone else, although he is severely disabled.
Nevertheless, perhaps his "flourless" diet has been a contributing factor to his
longevity.
>
> Sorry to ramble on, but it does irritate me that all CR is lumped into the
> Walford type of diet. Who says you can't do CR with a Paleo diet? I sure do
> try to do just that! CR is usually abbreviated as CRON, meaning Calorie
> Restriction with Optimal Nutrition. The arguable question is, of course, what is
> optimal nutrition?
>
> Maddy Mason
> Hudson Valley, NY