Category Archives: intermittent fasting

At the age of 80, I am interested in anything that might add a few to my remaining days. For that reason, this article in the Alumni Magazine of the University of Colorado piqued my interest.

In 1935 in upstate New York, a little-known animal husbandry researcher named Clive McKay looked into the rat cage in his lab and found an unexpected window into the Fountain of Youth.

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Conventional wisdom at the time held that the more animals were fed, the better they’d fare. But McKay noticed something different: Long after the well-fed rats began to show signs of aging, those on a nutrient-dense but super-low-calorie diet retained a silky sheen to their fur, remained alert and agile and lacked the age-related health problems of their more gluttonous peers. In the end, the calorie-restricted mice also lived about 300 days longer — nearly a third of a lifetime in rat years.

Fast forward to 2020, and studies in everything from fruit flies and worms to monkeys and people have confirmed that sharply restricting calories (by 20-40 percent) while maintaining essential nutrients can fend off age-related diseases and, in some cases, extend lifespan. The problem: People like to eat, so almost no one is willing to do it. And it can be dangerous. Continue reading →