X-Message-Number: 10597
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 22:30:49 -0700
From: Brian Manning Delaney <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #10571 - #10579
References: <>

Several questions about Calorie restriction (CR) have come
up on this list recently. With Ben Best, I agree that this
is probably not the right forum in which to discuss CR.
Nevertheless, a few matters remain to be rectified.

Thomas Donaldson <> wrote:

> To Jan Coetzee: Calorie restriction begun in
> early life comes close to doubling lifespan.
> However quite a number of studies (you should be
> able to find them yourself) show in animals that
> calorie restriction begun after puberty WILL
> increase lifespan. By not nearly as much, in
> fact by about as much as various drugs are
> claimed to increase lifespan.

No drugs have shown an increase in maximum life span in 1)
repeated, 2) well-conducted studies, with the _possible_
exception of deprenyl (merely "possible" because I'm not yet
convinced the studies were well-conducted). The most
important criterion for "well-conducted" is controlling for
the effects of CR (which one or two of the deprenyl studies
did, though indirectly).

Do you then mean average life span? This is certainly an
important measure of a drug's efficacy; yet it's one that
generally can't indicate an anti-aging effect, but rather a
specific effect on one or a small number of diseases: great
if you have the disease, or are likely to get it, but
worthless otherwise.

All studies I've seen of CR started after puberty show that
the increase in life span, AS A PERCENTAGE OF EXPECTED YEARS
OF LIFE REMAINING, is about the same as that seen when the
CR is started much earlier.

We still don't have controlled experiments in humans, of
course. But we almost certainly never will, at least not
with mortality as an endpoint.

(By the way, Thomas, in going through various cryonics Web
pages recently (something I do after having a brush with
death, which motivates me to look into cryonics -- though
never enough to sign-up, for some reason), I noticed that
you're "the fellow in the news with the brain tumor" (or
share his name). Glad to see you're still around! A good
friend of mine -- a neurologist, as it happens -- was
diagnosed with a grade ~II-III astrocytoma four years ago,
and has been struggling. "Cancer of the self," it feels
like. May you be, or remain, well!)


One quick response -- marginally on the anti-CR side, for a
change! -- to Ben:

> Countless studies have shown reduction of blood
> pressure and blood glucose and other biomarkers
> of aging with loss of weight (fat). My personal
> experience with this is documented in the June
> 1998 issue of  LIFE EXTENSION magazine, and it
> corresponds with the personal evidence  of the
> BioSpherians as documented in THE ANTI-AGING PLAN.

One criticism of the Biosphere II study (search Medline for
Biosphere AND Walford, to get some references -- or go here
[and click "Related Articles" for more]:


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=1454844&form=6&db=m&Dopt=b)
would be this: it's not a controlled study. Careful analysis
of the variables was done, but one can't rule out that
something other than CR caused some of the changes seen in
the Biospherians -- for example, their intense level of
exercise.

Still (and this side of the argument I do ultimately think
is right here), no study has shown anything -- be it
exercise or some drug, in any combo -- to be capable of
producing the changes seen in the Biospherians, so it seems
quite likely that it was diet that caused the changes (see
the references for more on the statistical analyses).

If there are people out there who aren't doing CR because
they think it won't work in adult humans, they are acting
very unwisely. Not that there aren't reasons not to do CR
(vanity [depending on your set-point], pregnancy, desire to
get pregnant, predisposition to eating disorders, love of
eating unrestrictedly, etc.)


Doug Skrecky wrote:

> Mr. Delaney,
>
> In addition to some argument and an occasional
> fact your replies to my newsgroup postings on
> fitness versus fatness involved a not
> inconsiderable amount of defamation of character.
> I would appreciate it if you would omit the later.
>
> If you have anything to say about this, please
> email me privately and not post on cryonet.

Mr. Skrecky,

If you plan to accuse me of having only an "occasional
fact", and "some argument" -- in addition to employing
defamatory statements -- in my replies to you, please email
me privately, and not post on Cryonet.

(Translation: if you really wanted to get into this
privately, not publicly, you wouldn't have sent this to
Cryonet.)

(Translation of the translation: you _wanted_ to get into
this publicly, because you feel shamed.)

(Translation^3: you feel shamed because you realize -- and
have realized ever since I started responding to you -- that
your anti-CR arguments are uniformly of exceptionally poor
quality.)

(Translation^4: Your arguments are of exceptionally poor
quality because you refuse the numerous offers of assistance
in interpreting science you've received by me and many
others over the years.)

(Translation^5: You refuse offers of assistance because of
your pride.)

(Translation^6: I will continue to... well, you know the
rest. See _The Republic_, if not.)

Well-intentioned, as always,
Brian.

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