Eat Less Food and Live Longer: Is this Old News or New?
A study carried out in China in 2020 is claiming that if you Eat Less, You will Live Longer.
A study carried out in China in 2020 is claiming that if you Eat Less, You will Live Longer. They are not just talking about weight loss and good skin, they are talking about down at singular cell level, where this can have an effect on increasing life span.
Their studies have shown that a restrictive calorie-controlled diet (Caloric Restriction), can reprogramme the metabolism and is linked to a longevity and reduction in some diseases (Shuai Ma et al., 2020).
With all the diets out there for you to choose, Slimming world, Weight watchers, Lighter life, Hip and Thigh diet, Atkins Diet to name a few, what makes this one unique, Isn’t Caloric Restriction just another term for a diet that helps you lose weight. This study says No, it isn’t. It states, “It’s an eating pattern to maintain good health and live longer.”
By reducing caloric intake to a level that does not deprive the body of essential nutrients causing malnutrition, the study showed that the tests carried out on a variety of animals over decades, concluded the calorie restriction diet delayed the onset of age-related disorders and in some it even extended their lifespan.
The trouble with this study is that it hadn’t incorporated the human factor, so what makes it safe for human beings?
Scientists still have a lot to learn about restricting calories, they don’t even know if such an eating pattern is safe or even doable in the long run. There is no evidence to suggest Caloric Restriction as a recommended eating regimen.
We all know if we eat too much, we put on weight (well many of us do), some are lucky and don’t. We all know if we continue with non-nutritional overeating, that we are likely to become obese. Thus, causing Co-Morbidities.
Surely the answer is to eat healthily and to exercise. I find it difficult to comprehend, having been through every single diet you can name (except the Atkins Diet) that this Caloric Restriction is the answer to all our prayers.
Yes, it would be great to find the magic cure for obesity, it would certainly save the NHS money, not only for the obesity itself but for all the co-morbidities that go with it, but, and it is a big but, there is No Magic Cure.
Its up to each individual to take control of their own eating habits. Yes, there are medical conditions out there that can cause weight gain, I hear you say, I have one of them. Hypothyroidism, it lowers your metabolism and leads to weight gain, but there is medication to take to level out the Thyroid hormone and so it becomes a level playing field, if you take the medication consistently.
So eating a well balanced healthy diet is what we all need to do, but not only that, we all need to get more active. It has proven in many studies that eating a healthy balanced diet and being more physically active will cause us to lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle whether that will prolong life, no one knows as everyone is an individual and no two bodies are the same.
Until the research and concrete evidence is out there to confirm that long term Caloric Restriction is safe and doable for a human being, then I think I will stick to trying to eat healthier by making better choices and to get more active. This is great news that the study has discovered the changes at singular cell level, but it definitely isn’t new News that eating healthily will help you have a healthier life.
What do you think? Email: Nursing@upccambridge.co.uk
Read the full article here:
National Institute of Aging, 2018 : https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/calorie-restriction-and-fasting-diets-what-do-we-know
