Cr increases maximum lifespan in primates WOW!!

[mikeccolella]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180405093241.htm

 

So a primate study shows: The scientists exposed a group of mouse lemurs to moderate chronic caloric restriction (30% fewer calories than their peers consuming a normal diet) from the outset of early adulthood (Restrikal cohort, see visuals below). They then considered their survival data as well as possible age-related alterations. The first result, after the experiment had been running for ten years, was that in comparison to the animals in the control group, the lifespan of those subject to caloric restriction increased by almost 50%. More specifically, their median survival is 9.6 years (compared to 6.4 years for the mouse lemurs in the control group). And, for the first time among primates, the scientists observed that the maximum lifespan had increased: almost a third of the calorie-restricted animals were still alive when the last animal in the control group died at the aged of 11.3 years

[TomBAvoider]

"mouse lemur" is indeed technically a primate, but... really it's a pretty dramatically different animal from humans - it's a dwarf species, for one, which always involves a fairly dramatic difference physiologically, and it's a nocturnal animal, again, fairly dramatically different physiologically. It's also not a very long lives species, so interventions can have a big impact by percentage, even if it involves just a handful of months or years, as is the case with other short lived species, such as mice etc.

 

It's a nice result, but let's be clear, this is not the same as if you had this result in an ape, for example. Mouse lemurs are just too different from us. But like I always joke about any results in animals rather than humans - "well, I guess that's good for the [insert animal here: mouse, lemur, rat etc.]", in other words, we can recommend CR to mouse lemurs for life extension. Still says nothing much about humans. YMMV.

[Matt]

On the other hand, Tom, a significant number of the rhesus monkeys died from causes unrelated to aging and caused by many factors that typically would not cause a human to die if treated. So that study doesn't tell us anything either, because you can't see the effect of slowing down intrinsic aging without separating flaws in the model which makes kills the animal and often causes them to be euthanized due to factors unrelated to aging and would not typically kill a human.

 

It's the same with the dog study. Yes, it extended lifespan, but many of the dogs were euthanized because of hip dysplasia, severe arthritis. So a mechanical issue could prevent a bigger degree of life extension. Just because of mechanical failure/wear and tear.  An issue with the model CR was imposed on, not the translatability of CR on diseases and aging which are more likely to kill humans: cardiovascular, stroke, diabetes, cancer etc..  Which CR is clearly very powerful at protecting against, with the exception that we know less about its effect on cancer in humans.

[Matt]

Published an article about the study on my blog if you're interested :)