Jump to content

Interview with Dr Luigi Fontana


Cloud

Recommended Posts

Thanks Cloud!

 

I hadn't seen that interview with Luigi. You are right, it is really good.

 

At around 2:30 in this 7 minute video interview, he talks about how the "calories, calories, calories" mantra that researchers used to believe for the longevity benefits of CR has really failed. He points to quantity and quality of protein, meal timing, and fiber feeding the gut microbiome to prevent inflammation as important contributing factors to the association between diet and longevity.

 

At the end he emphasizes the importance of a healthy diet and lifestyle in maintaining health and extending life. He expresses extreme skepticism over his colleagues' focus on trying to find pharmacological solution to the diseases of aging.

 

--Dean

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I saw this a while back and just rewatched it. It's a great 3-4 minute summary of the many interrelated factors driving nutrition-related health outcomes. Because CR and ON (factors such as macronutrient ratios, food choices, meal timing, and various phytochemicals) are interrelated it's hard to tease apart the mechanisms of their benefits and to what extent either one or the interaction is driving beneficial changes.

 

A lot of research suggests that CR per se drives benefits that aren't hugely modified, or at least enhanced, by ON. Put another way, CR can at least partially offset sub-par ON. Conversely, a lot of research shows significant benefits to ON in such as way that adding CR to an otherwise optimized diet may not provide much additional benefit. Of course this depends on the person (or species, or genetic model, etc.), the degree of CR, and which benefits they're trying to achieve.

 

CR activates a number of energy sensing pathways that may uniquely modify primary aging (maximum lifespan) while ON is probably mostly modifying secondary aging (health-span, and probably average lifespan). Of course both potentially act on primary aging processes but primarily act on secondary aging, but for those serious practitioners who are really striving for longer maximum lifespans strict CR is probably required on top of ON. As Fontana points out, the CR research focusing on "calories, calories, calories" is somewhat muddled, and given some current research about the potential for CR to no be as robustly life-extending as previously though, especially in free-living humans, the focus on ON with more mild CR is probably where most people should focus their effort (assuming they aren't highly motivated to maintain CR per se).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...