Will starving yourself help you live longer? Maybe not

The longevity diet’s premise is seductively simple: cutting your calorie intake well below your usual diet will add years to your life.

New research published on Wednesday, however, shows the extreme, emaciating diet doesn’t increase lifespan in rhesus monkeys, the closest human relatives to try it in a rigorous, long-running study. While caveats remain, outside experts regarded the findings as definitive, particularly when combined with those from a similar study.

“If there’s a way to manipulate the human diet to let us live longer, we haven’t figured it out yet and it may not exist,” said biologist Steven Austad of the University of Texas Health Science Center’s Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, who wrote an analysis of the study in Nature.

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Source:  By Sharon Begley, ReutersAugust 29, 2012 at http://www.canada.com/health/diet-fitness/Will+starving+yourself+help+live+longer+Maybe/7162303/story.html