One Monkey will mess you up, the other…not so much
The above picture was taken from the article “Proof mounts on restricted diet” found on the BBC news website.
Obviously, there is a difference between these two monkeys…
The best way I can describe it is as follows – When you look into the eyes of the monkey on the right, you see there is a WHOLE LOT OF FIGHT left in him. The monkey on the left…nothing.
Here’s the kicker… Both of these monkeys are OLD…27 to be exact (In monkey years..these guys are geriatric). The difference is the one on the left ate more over his lifetime then the one of the right who was calorie restricted.
So just as the title of the article says..the evidence for the life-extending properties of calorie restriction is definitely mounting.
But it’s not just life extension. It’s quality of life.
Look at the two monkeys again. They are the same age…one just…well, one still ‘has it’.
And if you don’t find the top picture convincing, check out this photo:
So it’s not just extending your life, it’s extending the quality of your life.
Now there are people who don’t like the idea of calorie restriction.
To quote directly from the article:
“Monkeys may be a close relation but there are significant differences which means not everything we see in them can be translated to humans,” said Catherine Collins, spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association.
“And there should be some serious reservations about cutting calories so dramatically, particularly for anyone under the age of 30. Any such diet would need to be very balanced to avoid malnutrition, and it would be a long-term commitment.
“People would have to weigh up whether they are prepared to compromise their enjoyment of food for the uncertain promise of a longer life, and a life which could be dogged by all sorts of problems – including osteoporosis.”
Of course, I understand why they did this…
Journalism 101, find someone (anyone) who will give an opposing view point.
OK so the point of all this…
The dietitian missed a HUGE point.
Calorie restriction DOES NOT have to be a “compromise of the enjoyment of food for the uncertain promise of a longer life”
Eat Stop Eat is a form of Calorie restriction (a term I HATE, but more on that later)
It’s true. Flexible Intermittent Fasting is an easy and effective way to reduce your overall calorie intake while still enjoying the foods you eat.
The other thing is that it’s a mistake to say the longevity is ONLY about living a longer life. It’s about living a younger life too.
Personally, I’m not sure I want to live to 200, but I do know, that when I get older…I want my great grand kids to look into my eyes and think “Man, great grandpa Pilon still has some fight left in him!”
BP
PS – The ‘osteoporosis’ that the dietitian bought up this is one of the reasons we weight train. Bones are like muscles, they respond to the challenge. Keep loading them and they will stay strong for a long time.
PPS- The reason I hate the term ‘calorie restriction’ – If evidence suggests that eating ‘normal’ leads us to being overweight with a high risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease, where as eating ‘restricted’ doesn’t…well…then shouldn’t restricted be ‘normal’ and ‘normal’ be “sorry, we messed up an overestimated how many calories a human needs”???
***The original article can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8141082.stm
Great post. That study is quite interesting. I wonder, however, how much more was the monkey on the left eating?
I agree with you. The term “calorie restriction” is so negative; people automatically have a look of disgust on their face whenever they read that phrase because it sounds so difficult and unpleasant.
As you said, it should be called “normal.”
Well done!
Hi Brad,
Even if someone is on ‘maintenance’ and fasts a few times per week, but does eat enough on other days so that he’s not in a calorie deficit, he STILL gets longevity and health benefits. Another reason to love ESE!
“But surprisingly, the mice whose calories were restricted every other day were just as healthy as, if not healthier than, the mice whose calories were restricted daily. The alternate-day mice had lower glucose and insulin levels, two indicators of longevity and heart health. The alternate-day mice also exhibited stronger central nervous systems.
The results of this study are even more remarkable considering that the alternate-day mice were genetically engineered to gorge on the days that they were allowed to eat freely. Even though they were not losing weight, they still experienced significant health improvements.”
From: http://www.johnsonupdaydowndaydiet.com/html/diet-science.html#alternate-day-calorie-restriction
I note that it looks as if Dr. Johnson has taken his business in the direction of selling Resveratrol supplements… But the benefits of intermittent fasting don’t require pills. I guess Resveratrol is being marketed as, “eat all you want and still get the benefits of caloric restriction!” To which I say, hmmmmmmmm.
Brad,
Great find on that article. I would rather be the monkey on the right!! If I was the grand kid of the one on the left, I’d be scared of him. It looks like he’s about to fall apart!
You are right, if you make ESE a part of your lifestyle you can still enjoy the foods you love. I do!! ESE with a great training program (I prefer Turbulence Training) will enable you to become a strong old man/woman!
Thanks for posting these Brad. I pay very little attention to the MSM these days and hadn’t seen them yet.
Good stuff my man! It is the QUALITY of life that matters most, but quantity is easy to measure since it is a hard end point-you are either dead or alive after a set period of time.
Rock on!
Mike T Nelson
PhD(c), CSCS, ZMT
http://www.ExtremeHumanPerformance.com
Brad,
I like your use of the pictures! Powerful. However, I had a different take on this study. I don’t think the results come from calorie restriction, but from reductions of blood sugar and insulin. Caloric restriction always involves carbohydrate restriction, hence reduction of insulin levels – and IF also reduces total carbohydrate exposure and insulin levels. Other animal studies support my perspective. More in my blog post.
Nia,
The restricted monkeys ate 30 percent less than the others.
I saw this on the news last night, and I don’t think they gave exact amounts. Just the healthier monkey ate “a third less over his lifetime.” To me 1/3 less doesnt’ sound like that much!
brad checkout this take on the study -> http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2009/07/hungry-monkey-study-shows-longevity.html
I agree with you and Nia – anything with the word “restriction” in it has a negative feel to it. I know that the mouse studies they did, the “restricted” mice got about 30% less calories than the “normal” or “overfed” mouse. I think I may have seen some human data for definitions of “normal” and “restricted’ (where restricted resulted in increased health and longevity) but I can’t remember the numbers.
Is it ultimately the less calories or the healthy weight/body composition that results in the increase health and longevity?
SO basically any “system” that helps you keep caloric intake in check will be beneficial and this is just another area where the elegant simplicity of Eat Stop Eat shines?
Perhaps it is merely semantics, but to the general public, restricted would likely equate to what would truly be a normal intake, whereas for many who are dedicated to their fitness restricted often means restricted (and possibly then some).
As always, thank you for providing plenty of quality food for thought, Mr. Pilon.
I was wondering how long it would be before you posted on this. The monkey study is similar to the studies that have been done on other animals (mice, worms) and the results are always the same. Eat less, live longer and better. The news media always hypes up the “unpleasant” aspect of eating less. Maybe the problem is that people have gotten used to super sized portions and would have to (oh No!) eat less. The nice thing about ESE is that once you start doing it you realize it’s not that hard. After a year or so it is normal and the idea of eating all the time seems weird. BTW , I saw an article about Jack Lalanne who is still alive at 94 and training with weights and swimming. He says he eats 2 times a day at 10am and 7PM. Not exactly ESE but about a 13 hr fast. Food for thought: Train hard and eat less. But you can’t sell that one so instead the news hypes stuff like magic pills that will make you thin and you won’t have to exercise.
see this article to see what I mean:http://tinyurl.com/nkgwyl
Keep up the good work. Brad.
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Well, the article says that the healthier monkey was eating 30% fewer calories than the less healthy one. So I guess that would be like eating at maintenance 5 days a week and fasting 2 days per week…which is ESE. I had heard of other studies that cut calories way more drastically than that (in rats, I think), which seems like it would not be too fun.
Brad,
I really think this Blog post put things into perspective for healthy living. Everything should be done in moderation. Eat well – but not too point of overeating. Exercise/Workout regularily – but not to the point of overdoing it. It is a very simple strategy and yet the Medical Profession would have us think different…
Brad, the monkey comparison is gold. Screw the testimonials, throw the monkeys on the front page. It’s awesome!
I agree with Cecile, that it sounds totally like ESE of 2 fast days with 5 maintenance days. Could you have found a better study to support ESE? Good stuff!
This post is great, the name of the article mind you really sucks. There is no further need to mount evidence. Just as we know that eating too much makes you fat – restricted calroie intake extends life.
I’m glad that Kjtten mentioned that ESE works just as well as full time dieting.
Thank you Brad for giving us a practical vehicle to enjoy this ‘quality life extension’ opportunity. I too want to have some fight left in me when i play with my great grand children, maybe even great great.
That monkey looks insane. I would not steal its banana.
Excellent post, Brad! I always feel better when I’m not weighed down with exhasusting food. Then, eat to compensate I feel great and lose body fat. Never fails, works every time. Sheryl Blystone
Judging from the pictures, it looks like overfeeding is a form of animal torture. What does that mean for us?
A little hat tip for pointing this story in the last thread would be nice… Of course mine was from a different source and didn’t have cool monkey pics.
There both probably eating garbage lab chow for this experiment…. the one on the right is eating less of it, no wonder he is healthier.
BRad,
I Know you are big on mini-fast research. I found a good article that I thought you’d like..
Bahadori et al.
A “mini-fast with exercise” protocol for fat loss.
Med Hypotheses. 2009 Jul 2. [Epub ahead of print]
Alwyn Cosgrove mentioned it on his blog. I hope this message gets through to ya.
According to this blog post, there are some serious problems with the design of this study: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/07/calorie-restrictive-eating-for-longer.html
@Andreas
Hi Andreas,
Sandy makes excellent points on the longevity side of this trial, but the points on simply the look of the animals is still valid.
Also, some points she made actually make the study better.
For instance the normal monkey overate by 20%, and the restricted monkey under ate from THAT number.
Which actually makes the research even more interesting considering the current state of human consumption.
I think life-extension has confused some of the concepts of longevity.
It’s not about living forever, it’s about living as young as possible for as long as possible.
BP
@frey
Thanks Frey,
B
@MattinSomerville
Hi Matt,
I actually found the BBC story from an email I was sent.
(where the pictures are from)
But thank you for the other link aswell.
B
@Brad Pilon
You’re right, the monkey on the right does look a lot sharper.
It would be interesting to see all the monkeys from both groups, though. I assume those two were picked specifically to illustrate the point the scientists wanted to get across.
Hey Brad,
Great post and I loved ESE.
A Heads up and another indication of how ignorant and useless the MSM is but I’m sure you knew that. This toolbag came to the opposite conclusion of you based on the same study.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/opinion/16iht-edcohen.html
They even mislabeled the picture to prove the author’s point or a very convenient error.
My gramma is in her early 90′s and my grandpa is 89 and they are both as healthy as anything! Never a heart attack, no cancer, nothing. My gramma is teeny tiny but very strong..she picks up grand babies that are probably half her weight and runs around on 3in heels and has legs I would kill to have..it’s a little weird actually lol. But the thing is, they both skip lunch. They eat breakfast and eat again at 6 everyday and that’s it. They walk 1/2hr everyday as well and weight train together (awfully cute to see). My gramma says she feels better with not a lot of food in her belly and eats like a bird..but eats EVERYTHING she wants in tiny portions. The other day she had a piece of pie that looked like a sliver of paper with a spoon sized blob of ice cream. She has desserts everyday that look like that.
Great post Brad!! ps. That one monkey is seriously scary looking!
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Brad, this is spot on.
I’ve come across similar studies, serious peer reviewed ones, involving lab rats showing clear life extension effects from intermittent fasting.
A lot of what you argue is similar to Ori Hofmekler in the Warrior Diet, though I find your approach to be much more clear and accessible.
I’ve advocated similar things to friends, surprise the ones who actually took my advice lost a lot of weight, in a natural healthy manner.
I’m finding your Eat Stop Eat approach a bit more straight forward than Hofmekler’s Warrior Diet (with respect to him) but I advocate both yours and his works to friends. I believe it works because when I eat in a similar way I am far more energetic, healthy, and alive, than ever.
When I don’t, surprise, even if I don’t gain weight (which I sometimes do) I feel slow, sluggish, no where near as vital.
I believe that we are conditioned into a set of cultural myths regarding how to eat that have less to do with reality than we would expect, to have a sense of disgust towards fasting “gee isn’t that dangerous”. I mean, this thread says it all:
http://forums.jpfitness.com/general-health-discussion/30227-eat-stop-eat-intermittent-fasting.html
Not to be judgment, and with respect to people with similar ideas, I think they act out of cultural conditioning bias and some ignorance.
Real hostility exists, in our culture, to fasting: a gut feeling that it is something “extreme”. I know not WHY this conditioning exists, but it does. It is not rational, by any means.
It is cultural conditioning. Our culture’s antipathy to fasting and the huge amounts of food we consume daylong are culturally conditioned. Most non sedentary traditional populations had eating patterns much different from ours. Looking at how robust many native peoples were, one wonders if they knew something that we don’t.
Some religions do similar fasts on a regular basis. I grew up in a fairly liberal Muslim family, fasting was never pushed on my siblings but most of us started doing it voluntarily, my baby sisters started younger than any of us. The youngest wanted to start fasting at the age of 9. It never hurt her. When she was in Jr. High she was a cheerleader and basketball player, she was the captain of her cheer squad and outdid most of the girls even while fasting.
There are other factors, but the health benefits of both your intermittent fasting approach and Hofmekler’s approach are manifest. It takes a bit of DISCIPLINE to stick to it, but anyone who gives it a sincere try will reap some benefits. For now, I’m integrating your ESE approach into my life because it is more practical.
Anyone out there with a real weight problem, give Brad’s ideas a try for a couple of months. Stick to it. You WILL feel uncomfortable at first, but try ESE. If you can’t do it then for the love of god just try a water and tea fast one day a week consistently. And the other days just eat 3 square meals a day, eat fewer starches sugars and carbs in the daytime. Make your breakfast and lunch mostly salads and fruits.
Most hunger pangs are a conditioned feeling. Conquer it before it conquers you.
IF nothing else just stop drinking soda pop. One of my ex’s lost 40 lbs in 3 weeks by simply stopping drinking soda pop and eating ice cream. Now, she did consume gargantuan quantities of both, and this tells me something. MOST Obese people in our culture probably simply have to tweak a few things in the way they eat. Thyroid problems notwithstanding, the key is in how we are eating people, and this is something easily changed.
Kamal,
Amazing comments on cultural conditioning. With your permission, I’d like to quote…well…almost all of this in my next post.
B
hey Brad I agree, but a new study published says otherwise. there was NO significant difference between monkeys who ate more or less.
so what are your opinions on this? is this legit?
That isn’t a new study, it’s a blog post that was written in 2009.