Hosts: Mignon Fogarty and Adam Lowe
Transcript: This episode originally aired December 27, 2005
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Adam: Going from obesity to the other end of the spectrum, a lot of people are doing research and looking at caloric restriction as a way to increase longevity and health. And scientists are getting more of an understanding of how this is working, and it seems as though there are some pathways that are activated during states of starvation that make a big difference in the apoptotic process – programmed cell death. And another thing they are looking for are, number one, what are the effects of caloric restriction -- how do you make it safe and healthy in some way, but also are there ways to turn on the beneficial pathways without the caloric restriction.
One thing they found is that there may be compounds in red wine that actually turn on the same pathways that get turned on during caloric restriction, and there's some thought that this may be the answer to the French paradox, which is why is it that people in France often have a very high fat diet that we think can be dangerous, but are very lean and don't have this big risk of cardiovascular disease that you would expect from that kind of diet.
Mignon: Well. I'll have to drink a toast to those researchers tonight.
Adam: Absolutely! One of the things they did find was that grapes grown in harsher climates or colder conditions seem to have a greater concentration of these resveratrols, these compounds that seem to turn on this pathway where one of the genes is called Sir2, so wines like Pinot Noir have a higher concentration than Cabernet Sauvignon.
Mignon: That's fascinating! So is Sir2 one of those genes involved in apoptosis?
Adam: So, one of the things that it is though of the Sir2 gene is that it can induce certain DNA repair factors and those factors can help inhibit pro-apoptotic factors-- in other words, factors that cause programmed cell death – to try to sequester those pro-apoptotic factors away from mitochondria, and by doing that inhibit stress-induced cell death. So it's possible that increasing the expression of the Sir2 gene may help promote long term survival by helping important cells that might be hard to replace to survive in the body during times of stress or just in general survive longer. So this seems to be activated in conditions of starvation or caloric restrictions. But again it also looks like there is a chance they can be induced by compounds like resveratrol in certain kinds of red wine.
Mignon: I know there have been some studies completed in dogs showing that their lifespan was increased by calorie restriction and there are primate studies going on where...you know primates live longer...I don't think they have the final results yet... but they have found that the older primates that have been on calorie restriction are much healthier than the ones who've been fed a normal diet. They have less diabetes and heart disease and things like that.
So, you know, these are mammals. They aren't worms or flies. So, I think everyone believes this will be applicable to humans, although no studies have been done to show that, and we certainly can't say until the studies are done. But not only could calorie restriction help people live longer, but also be healthier in old age. Which is something when you think about life extension, a lot of people believe that they wouldn't want to live longer because old age is filled with the hardship of illness, but one promise of calorie restriction is that not only would you live longer, but your final years would be healthier.
Adam: And one thing that is amazing is that it looks like these pathways function in similar ways through many different organisms, not just animals, but going back to yeast. So yeast and then fruit flies, and now there are these mammalian studies going on, seems to indicate that this is a pathway that is maybe conserved across many different forms of life.
But, one thing people should know though if anybody wants to try to replicate this (and it's not proven yet) a critical thing for people on caloric restriction diets is to make sure they are getting adequate nutrition. It's not a very easy thing to do, number one, because it's probably something in the range of a 30% to 50% reduction in the calories one would intake compared to recommended caloric intake; but it is also very hard to get all the nutritional needs, so you need to make sure you're getting the right nutritional supplements because you can get deficiency diseases if you're not getting adequate nutrition.
Mignon: Right. I have heard that as well, that it's very complicated, as we all should anyway, people (on this diet) focus their diet on nutrition dense food. Things like kale that already have huge amounts of vitamins in them relative to the calories that they provide. So, you can do it, but it requires an enormous amount of planning.
Adam: And also anyone who is considering doing this kind of thing should definitely consult with their physician, to put together a plan that would be healthy for them.
Mignon: That's right. I have tried it for a few weeks or months at a time before, and it is very hard.
Adam: I've tried it too. I don't know that I've measured calories, but I take vitamins so I try to get things that way. But I can, for stretches of time, dramatically reduce my caloric intake, and got really used to eating so much less food.
Mignon: And you do feel better.
Adam: But it's hard to get there, because it takes a couple of weeks to get to that zone, and then you can totally lose it when you go out to dinner with people, es[especially around the holidays and whatnot, because it's really hard to not eat when you are around people who are eating.
Mignon: Right. And you've got the stuffing, and the gravy and the potatoes...
Adam: And cookies.
Mignon: I have a program called FitDay that you can enter your food in and it shows you not only your calories, but also the nutrition that you are getting from them. And I've tried to get the US RDA of every nutrient just through my diet, and it's next to impossible. I've never been able to hit the 100% of US RDA of every vitamin and mineral through my diet.
Adam: And another thing....if you actually wanted to eat the food pyramid...
Mignon: It's like 4000 calories (laughing).
Adam: Right. It's at least 4000 calories (laughing).
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