Stephen Hawking's weight: mild CR?

[KHashmi317]

It's hard to dig up reliable data on celebs. Here's what Google suggests:

https://healthyceleb.com/stephen-hawking-height-weight-body-statistics/57756

 

Height: 5 ft 6½ in or 169 cm

 

Weight: 61 kg or 134.5 pounds

 

Given Hawking's emaciated appearance (from photos and videos), I wonder if the dude was mildly CR'd? Inadvertently, of course ;)

 

The guy is certainly an outlier in many human-achievement categories. Undoubtedly (esp. given his wealth and celeb states), he received superb health care and nutrition -- and for decades. A tribute to modern medicine, and hospice.

 

Still, I wonder about that weight and optimized nutrition.

Maybe some entrepreneurial author will one day market:

 

The Stephen Hawking Diet: How To Live An Extra 50 Years

 

[TomBAvoider]

I doubt he's emaciated due to CR. I suspect it's due to the wasting effects of ALS. But on a completely different tangent, I've always wondered about cachexia. Is it simply a downstream effect, a wasting that's a side effect of cancer, or is cachexia some kind of body defense a kind of CR that attempts to deprive cancer of the nutrients cancer needs to create more uncontrollable tissue neoplasm growth, the same way fever is supposed to be a defense mechanism to raise the body temperature to kill the invading bacteria/virus. Of course, just as with fever, I suppose cachexia can go too far and it ends up killing the body. I wonder if voluntary severe CR undertaken upon a cancer diagnosis might be sometimes helpful - on the other hand, I've read scenarios where the pathology prioritises the cancer growth over everything else, so if you cut back on calories the few that you do take in go first and foremost to the cancer, so really you gain nothing by going CR at that point.

[KHashmi317]

I doubt he's emaciated due to CR. I suspect it's due to the wasting effects of ALS. But on a completely different tangent, I've always wondered about cachexia. Is it simply a downstream effect, a wasting that's a side effect of cancer, or is cachexia some kind of body defense a kind of CR that attempts to deprive cancer of the nutrients cancer needs to create more uncontrollable tissue neoplasm growth, the same way fever is supposed to be a defense mechanism to raise the body temperature to kill the invading bacteria/virus. Of course, just as with fever, I suppose cachexia can go too far and it ends up killing the body. I wonder if voluntary severe CR undertaken upon a cancer diagnosis might be sometimes helpful - on the other hand, I've read scenarios where the pathology prioritises the cancer growth over everything else, so if you cut back on calories the few that you do take in go first and foremost to the cancer, so really you gain nothing by going CR at that point.

The topic of medically "treating" cancer with CR has been discussed on the main list a few times. Not sure the Archives are still avail. But some activity on that topic, IIRC, early 2004. Michael Rae responded with some refs. to topical animal studies. Again, IIRC!

 

About cachexia as a side-effect of myriad ailments (of which cancer is just one) vs. cachexia as a natural defense mech. to cancer (and other ailments) ... hard to say, because:

 

"CR is weak, crude medicine." That is, CR might help a healthy animal during famine. But if the animal is sick -- cancer, AIDS, etc. ailments listed in the Wiki article -- then it is of best interest to have as much nutrition as possible.

 

Cachexia might be a "good-for-the-herd" mechanism ... animal with cancer (AIDS, etc. doomed ailment) is a time/resource drain on the herd (defense, social care). [Wiki: "Cachexia physically weakens patients to a state of immobility stemming from loss of appetite..."] . Mother Nature responds: "Get rid of it quickly (e.g. thru predation, or hastened death) so the herd can continue."

Of course, modern medicine, codified ethics and the medical-industrial complex changes things for us humans.

[TomBAvoider]

Thanks for your thoughts, KHashmi317, always welcome. Yes, I suppose the evidene weight falls more toward the idea that cachexia is detrimental to the survival of the individual. CR is definitely different for healthy vs sick organism - even from what I understand wrt. heart surgery where apparently - as I understand - overweight patients do better than normal/underweight.

[KHashmi317]

Most of the literature (Wiki, etc.) on Cachexia seem to exclusively relate to humans. It's unclear whether/how other animals experience Cachexia. In the wild, they likely die or are picked off by predators (due to weakness or lethargy). Humans may very well enter the emaciated condition because they are socially protected, fed and cared for.

[Mechanism]

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