Panel Discussion
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Question: Does each believe that CR will work in humans?
Coleman Coleman(RC)- dont know if it will work in humans - obvious
health benefits, but also consequences. Doesnt practice CR for personal
reasons - enjoy cooking and food.
Greg Cartee (GC)- CR is vague term. Fewer calories is better than what
western people are eating. Personally not worth it, enjoy food too much
Richard Lord (RL) - CR does work to finely tune the body. Humans have
stressors that lab animals do not, and this could get us into problem.
Doesnt practice CR, has a sweet tooth. He does fast on occasion, thinks
it can be beneficial.
Luigi Fontana (LF) - Very complex. Typical western diet doesnt work. But
other extreme he is worried about too. Extreme puts body in stress.
Happy medium is better. Some CRonies may be going overboard - bone
problems, oxidative damage.
Question: What you regard as overdoing CR? What are the alarm bells for
overdoing CR?
Coleman - wasting of lean mass, fractures, ceasing of reproductive cycles.
Cartee - Cant say in humans - works in rodents on short term CR.
Lord - Sleep disturbances. Cant stay asleep more than 2 hours. High
quinolinate biochemical marker - Paul and I have it.
Fontana - Were clearly weird - low WBC, low bone mass, low lymphocyte.
But maybe what is considered normal is wrong. If you go too low,
everybody know mortality risk goes up. We dont know how low is too low.
Everybodys different. Difficult to make any conclusion (e.g. 5% body fat
is safe, WBC should be X etc.) given the fact that we are in
"uncharted waters". Losing too much chest muscle impairs proper breathing,
for example. Breathing is an important part of health.
Question: Huge reduction in cancer rate in CR animals, but also a shift
to liver and lymphoma cancer. Are people doing CR more susceptible to
exposure in environmental toxins?
Lord - Yes, possibly. Could be caused by toxins from gut bacteria. Limited
glucose availability due to low insulin. We may not be digesting amino
acids well.
Question: What is interest of CR in medical community? What do you think
of us human CRonies?
Coleman - Very high interest in community. Admire our knowledge and
dedication
Cartee - Lots of scientific interest. Admire our discipline. Thinks it
will require a pill to get widespread acceptance.
Lord - Large problem in general population. People dont know the damage
their doing, and the medical advances everyone is ignoring, particularly
in the area of nutrition. Success in CRonies could factor into public
health policy changes.
Fontana - Huge interest in CR. NIH funding clinical studies in human
-multi-million dollar study. Doesnt think this will give much insight
into CR - it is really to see benefits of weight loss - the subjects are
starting out overweight, and wont get to CR range in six month study. As
a physician, we dont have any marker of future cancer. So we cant tell
whether were helping or hurting ourselves with what were doing. Concern
about some of us, some of us are overdoing it. We dont have good way of
telling if were overdoing it. As a researcher, continue doing what were
doing - were great subjects. But as friend, he says moderation is better.
Extra effort to drive down some parameters may be too risky. If everything
works fine, CR works in humans and were on a perfect diet, well get an
extra 10 years. But we risk taking off 20 years of our life by going too
far.
Question: How can we contribute to society? What should we do as a society
pursue? If we were to seek funding, where do you see we could get it?
Coleman - I dont know. Helpful for research, but dont know
Cartee - Selling blood not way to go - lose credibility. Participate in
research youre interested in. And be willing to listen to what the
researchers have to say.
Lord - Hard to get insurance coverage for his type of testing - not required.
Fontana - Doesnt like to talk about money.
Question: We rely heavily on animal studies. But in many cases animals arent
like people (2/3 drugs that work in rats, dont make it to clinical trials
because humans are different - e.g. fluoride and bone health). Leptin another
thing that works in rats to reduce obesity in rats, but not humans. Please
comment on generalization from animal data to humans.
Coleman - Yes, in bones, rodents dont have remodeling so not good model of
bone health. Looking at two species, one of them primates, is a very good idea.
Cartee - Rats are more like humans than mice. Small size of mice means
metabolic rate is very high. Need to be very careful with mice. Lots of
different strains of mice. Lots of strain specific results - knock out one
gene in a mouse strain and it does one thing, and another in a different strain.
Lord - Gene silencing enzyme. By analyzing gene similarities between animals
and humans, you can get a little closer to making a reasonable inference.
Fontana - Huge differences. Mice dont develop heart disease, even with high
cholesterol diet. Need APOe mutation to get heart disease.
Question: How good are strontium and fish oil? Supplements in general.
Fontana - In US, huge market for supplements. He cant understand it. In Italy
there arent any supplements. Latest antioxidant studies have failed (on cancer).
Our knowledge is so little that increasing one element like C or E is a risk
- cant say if it is healthy or not. Same goes with fatty fish or flax seed.
Excess of PUFA increased production of lipid peroxide. May explain some CRonie
data. Who knows the right balance between C, E and the other factors. Nobody
knows. They clinical studies have failed.
Lord - CRonies of all people need to be careful about large doses of supplements.
People with heart disease may benefit from fish oil, for example. Marketing
people are very good as selling stuff, including supplements, because people are
sensitive to health issues. There are specific cases where you need aggressive
interventions, but need to identify those.
Question: Is fiber bad in too high dose?
Lord - Probiotics + high fiber may be problem. L. acidophilus overgrowth may tax
liver. It is usually good in normal population. You can have too much of a good
thing.
Question: How valid is it to use our group for studies? With our group, the
extent of CR is difficult to measure. We have extraordinary interactions.
Pressures/guilt may bias what CRonies report. How to handle this possibly
confounding factor?
Lord - Use testing to define what CRON is. It appears our diet isnt CRON at
least according to current understanding of what is "optimal" - Us CRonies
exhibit B vitamin deficiency.
Fontana - Trend that people in study are doing something similar, call it CR.
Better to be inclusive of everyone doing something they consider to be CR.
Michael Sherman looks most "normal". From the knowledge we have in the general
population he *appears* most healthy - he looks most like healthy normal people.
But is being more "normal" good or bad from a health/longevity perspective?
Don't know? It is more risky to be different.
Question: Future of primate study. Bone quality very important issue. When will
you be looking at bone quality of cadavers you have, particularly the dead CR
monkeys? Also, dont see much difference between AL and CR monkeys. Do you expect
differences to show up?
Coleman - Dont want to perform analysis before have enough cadavers for statistical
significance. May be a while.
Question: Essential fatty acid testing. Percentage vs. absolute fatty acid levels.
Which to use?
Lord - Percentages are easy to do. Metametrix does absolute levels. If you dont
look at individual absolute levels, the percentages get screwed up (i.e. if one
of the big ones goes down, the little ones percentage will go up, but absolute
level - which is what counts, remains unchanged).
Question: If primates arent getting exercise in cage, will their bone mass and
muscle mass go down unrealistically relative to animals in the wild. Are there
interventions we might do to prevent this possible decline.
Cartee - Yes, but it depends on the exercise. High impact would be most
beneficial for both. Complicated question. Quick poll - virtually all CRonies
in the room exercise, and most do both resistance and aerobic exercise.
Coleman - Her monkeys will have lower bone and muscle mass - but same (lack of)
exercise for both populations.
Question: If we can virtually eliminate Heart Disease and most common cancers,
what should CRONies worry about dying from?
Fontana - Complications from hip fractures are something to be concerned about.
Pneumonia or infection can be dangerous. Overdoing with exercise on low cal diet,
or overdoing with supplements may be a problem. Increased oxidation may be problem.
Lord - Increased oxidative activity (not necessarily "damage") means less ability
in CRonies to handle stress - like kidney and livers ability to process drugs.
Tylenol requires lots of kidney processing - and too much Tylenol can result in
liver and/or renal failure.
Question: During evolutionary time, ability to handle fasting may have been
selected for. Is it good?
Fontana - Fasting may be good, unless youre already doing low cal diet and
exercise etc.
Lord - He is very much in favor of occasional fasting. Go without food for period
of time (e.g. 15 days). But the important thing is to stop fasting, and allow
tissue to rebuild. Train body to go without food. Promotes turnover of small
intestine and hepatic, which can be good. Recommends two books, learn to do
proper water fasting. Ball Braggs book - "The Miracle of Fasting" (Michael Rae comment - hes total flake), Cott "Fasting - the Ultimate Diet".
Fontana - Weight cycling is bad however.
