A lengthy article in Slate today explains that a recently released, long-anticipated study on monkeys failed to show that caloric restriction increased lifespan. It turns out that these monkeys -- even the ones without caloric restriction -- all outlived even the restricted monkeys from the trial everyone knows about. And it turns out the explanation was simply that they got better food:
It didn’t take him long to realize that the animals’ food was more
important than anyone had thought. The NIA monkeys were fed a
natural-ingredient diet, made from ground wheat, ground corn, and other
whole foods; the Wisconsin animals ate a “purified” diet, a heavily
refined type of food that allowed the researchers to control the
nutritional content more precisely. Because the NIA monkeys were eating
more natural ingredients, de Cabo realized, they were taking in more
polyphenols, micronutrients, flavonoids, and other compounds that may
have health-promoting effects.
Furthermore, the NIA diet consisted of 4 percent sucrose—while in the
Wisconsin diet, sucrose accounted for some 28 percent of the total
calories. High sugar consumption is thought
to be a primary driver of obesity, diabetes, and possibly some cancers.
“In physics, a calorie is a calorie,” says de Cabo. “In nutrition and
animal physiology, there is more and more data coming out that says that
the state of the animal is going to depend more on where the calories
are coming from.”
--
So that's what I'd like to eat from here on in -- a natural-ingredient diet, made from ground wheat, ground corn, and other whole foods. If they fed it to monkeys, it can't be all that expensive. Where can I get me some? Who will be the first to package it and get rich?
--
So that's what I'd like to eat from here on in -- a natural-ingredient diet, made from ground wheat, ground corn, and other whole foods. If they fed it to monkeys, it can't be all that expensive. Where can I get me some? Who will be the first to package it and get rich?
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