Nearly identical findings resulted from a second clinical study (NCT04150159).
These results provide initial support for beneficial effects of the FMD on multiple cardiometabolic risk factors and biomarkers of biological age.
Caloric restriction is among the most powerful life-extending interventions in mice. However, there is a lack of experimental data on its effect on human lifespan. Continuous caloric restriction is also very hard to maintain in humans in real life. Several substitutes have been proposed, such as time-restricted eating (intermittent fasting) and periodic long-term fasting.
USC Leonard Davis School Professor Valter Longo, a renowned geroscientist, has long been advocating for a particular type of caloric restriction, a fasting-mimicking diet (FMD).
FMD Against Fatty Liver and Immunosenescence
In this new study published in Nature Communications, Longo and his team analyzed additional data from two previous studies, focusing on body composition, liver adiposity, metabolic metrics, and biological age. Those studies, which included three FMD cycles, already showed reductions in body weight, trunk and total body fat, and blood pressure without any adverse effects.
Participants who had obesity, elevated CRP, elevated fasting glucose, or systolic hypertension showed an even greater decrease in biological age of 2.9 years after undergoing FMD.
A reduction in biological age is associated with but not equal to an increase in predicted life expectancy. When the researchers tried to estimate the latter, they found that FMD increased median predicted life expectancy from 82.2 to 83.5 years.
According to that model, if someone were to undergo three FMD cycles annually, that person would only be gaining 0.85 years of biological age for every one-year increase in your chronological age. IF this regimen of three annual cycles started at the age of 50, life expectancy at 70 would be about five years higher than without FMD: 88.3 years vs 83.2 years
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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There has to be an appropriate age were caloric restriction is at least not harmful. For humans, the brain does not fully mature until sometime in our (at least) mid 20’s. I would not want to restrict calories or certainly nutrition until at least the late 20’s. Historically we know people become sexually mature sooner the better their nutrition, and access to calories when young. Frankly, nature does not “allow” the malnourished to reproduce. A women below a certain weight will have her period stop, etc.
Since (what I know of), caloric restriction studies are based on mice. And I don’t know if it was reported how “mature” the mice were, who were put on a diet. Yet we HAVE observed, caloric restriction in mice extends THEIR lives. We need studies in animals who are larger, have a slower matabolisim, and a longer more complex interaction with their environment. You know, like us? Any volunteers?
Interesting article about Fasting-Mimicking Diet:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10377404/#:~:text=FMD%20is%20a%20plant%2Dbased,to%20five%20days%20for%20mice.
What about if we start it while we are in our 20s….??