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if you want to live longer simply eat less, a leading scientist has claimed, may you should Forget exercise, fad diets or so-called miracle pills .
Dr Michael Mosley, a presenter on BBC science show Horizon, said ongoing research suggested that a high metabolic rate – how much energy the body uses for normal body functions – is a risk factor for earlier mortality.
And he revealed that communities in Japan and the U.S. which follow strict, low-calorie diets appear to have a lifespan longer than the global average.
The 55-year-old said of calorie restriction diets, which are often as low as 600 calories a day: ‘The bottom line is that it is the only thing that’s ever really been shown to prolong life.
‘Ultimately, ageing is a product of a high metabolic rate, which in turn increases the number of free radicals we consume.
‘If you stress the body out by restricting calories or fasting, this seems to cause it to adapt and slow the metabolism down. It’s a version of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.’
Dr Mosley said he did not believe it was necessary to eat three meals a day because ‘what we think of as hunger is mainly habit’.
In a new Horizon programme, he also suggests that intermittent fasting could offer the same benefits as calorie restriction by reducing the growth of hormone IGF-1.
While the hormone maintains and repairs tissue, high levels have been shown to contribute towards cancer and ageing.
His comments, made to the Radio Times, come after the Institute of Health Ageing at University College London suggested eating 40 per cent less could extend a person’s life by 20 years.
A researcher said: ‘If you reduce the diet of a rat by 40 per cent it will live for 20 per cent longer. So we would be talking 20 years of human life. This has shown on all sorts of organisms, even labradors.’
Further
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Eating habit,
Longer life.
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Scientists in Australia say they’ve made a breakthrough in the fight against malaria by studying people who have developed an immunity to the disease
Researchers at Melbourne’s Burnet Institute analyzed the antibodies of adults and children in Kenya who had become immune over time to the parasite, carried by mosquitoes.
James Beeson, head of the institute’s Centre for Immunology and senior author of the study, said his team examined a key malaria protein called PfEMP1.
“The puzzle has been, what is the key point of attack of the immune system against malaria? We’ve established that one particular protein of malaria is the key point of attack of the immune system,” said Beeson.
Scientists discovered certain Kenyans had developed an immunity to that protein, which means the protein could be a target for a future vaccine.
Specifically, the team studied children between ages of one and 10, as well as adults, and the number of times they had gotten malaria. The more times they had suffered the disease, which causes up to a million deaths year, the more antibodies they had.
According to the study, “repeated infections over time are required to generate antibody responses toward [the protein].”
Beeson said new research will focus on developing a vaccine to induce that immune response to the protein.
Malaria is caused by a parasite called plasmodium, which is transmitted through the bites of infected mosquitoes. Symptoms of malaria include fever, headache and vomiting, and usually appear between 10 and 15 days after the bite.
When untreated, malaria can quickly become life-threatening by disrupting the blood supply to vital organs.
The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, also involved research by University of Melbourne and the Kenya Medical Research Institute.
Further
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Australian Researcher,
Malaria
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