Stephen Black wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Jim Guinee wrote:
> >
> > How close is science to understanding the most likely cause of the aging
> > process?
> >
> > Huh. Just I want -- again, to be 16...young, energetic, and pimple-faced.
>
> Jim, you're in luck. I just happen to know the secret of long
> life. It's simple. Eat less.
> .
> A _lot_ less (50-70% decrease in caloric intake).
>
> References
>
> Weindruch, R. (1996). Caloric restriction and aging. Scientific
> American, January, p. 46--
>
> Campisi, J. (2000). Aging, chromatin, and food
> restriction--connecting the dots. Science, 289, 2062--
One more reference (a summary article): Pinel, John P.J., Assanand, S., &
Lehman, D.R. (2000) Hunger, Eating, and Ill health. American Psychologist. 55,
1105-1116.
This topic is of interest to the way we teach hunger and motivation. As I
used to teach these topics, the "regulatory" drives (water, temperate, food)
maintain homeostatis at some optimal level. This may be true for temperature and
water, but perhaps not so for eating and hunger. The Pinel article advances an
"incentive" theory of eating that simply says food has positive incentive value
- we eat when food is available. This evolutionary mechanism creates non-optimal
weights in a society filled with a constant supply of fast food. They claim
previous studies failing to show the beneficial effects of being underweight
confonded underweight with smoking (under weight people are more likely to
smoke). When the smoking effect is removed beneficial effects emerge. However,
there is alot of infra-human animal research that provides what appears to be
direct causal evidence.
Maybe there is something to the old religious fasting traditons. Nowadays
Catholics give up things like chewing gum and sweets for the 40 days of Lent.
But in some churches it's a strict fast - no dairy, meat, sweets or alcohol. You
lose weight after 40 days of whole wheat, beans, celery and OJ (mostly because
you're sick of the beans and eat much less). But that is consistent with the
"incentive" theory of eating.
--
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John W. Kulig [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology http://oz.plymouth.edu/~kulig
Plymouth State College tel: (603) 535-2468
Plymouth NH USA 03264 fax: (603) 535-2412
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"What a man often sees he does not wonder at, although he knows
not why it happens; if something occurs which he has not seen before,
he thinks it is a marvel" - Cicero.
