Does CR keeps you looking younger?

[tanuki]

The question for the people who consistently practiced CR for at least 10,15 years - do  you really look significantly younger than healthy-conscious people at your age?
I know it is a small group to make conclusion but looking at people who practiced it for many years like David Fisher, Micheal Rae ( I believe) or Roy Walford they are pretty much looking close to their age and they certainly don't look like the were aging slower by 30-40% as Roy's once assumed.
 

[Saul]

Hi!

I began practicing CR in April, 1996; so about 26 years.  I don't think that my physical appearance is much better than others my age.  But, I still teach mathematics full time at the University of Rochester, as I have been doing since 1974.

I don't think that CR is a beauty treatment.

😉

  --  Saul

[Saul]

3 hours ago, Saul said:

Hi!

I began practicing CR in April, 1996; so about 26 years.  I don't think that my physical appearance is much better than others my age.  But, I still teach mathematics full time at the University of Rochester, as I have been doing since 1974.

I don't think that CR is a beauty treatment.

😉

  --  Saul

My wife (who is 14 1/2 years younger than I am) disagrees.  She says that I look a few years younger than my chronological age.  (So foes she.)

🙂

  --  Saul

[Ron Put]

It's hard to judge one's own age, but presumably, CR should make one appear younger.

Appearance does present health status in broad terms and I would think that all things equal, CR would improve enough health aspects to improve one's general appearance.

[tanuki]

Apparently most of the skin damages comes from external factors, especially uv rays. I would expect though to see some slowdown in skin cell ageing, skin thickness and balding/graying out, at least that much should be affected by CR. I know that being very thin can make people looking actually older but I am still surprised how little effect CR seem to have on longterm practicioners. Although it's only appearance it sometimes makes me thinking that Roy's assumption about potential benefits of CR on lifespan (extra 30-40 %) was hiperoptimistic.

[Saul]

I think that CR does help the skin -- that and taking cold showers, while avoiding soap, which will damage your skin microbiome.  I thin that my skin is thick for my physical age.

  --  Saul

[mccoy]

On 6/20/2022 at 5:14 PM, tanuki said:

The question for the people who consistently practiced CR for at least 10,15 years - do  you really look significantly younger than healthy-conscious people at your age?

That's hard to answer, in part because a personal opinion may be subjective and biased, in part because some people actually looked younger from the beginning. Matt, for example, has probably looked many years younger than his chronological age. Watching some of my pictures, I probably looked younger in my twenties.

It is also difficult to compare yourself with other health-conscious people who do not practice CR (but how can we know if they practice it in some measure?). Also, there should be exact parameters to measure and reliable measurement procedures.

 

[tanuki]

It might be biased but to some extent - you could say that you are looking 3-5 years younger than but rather wouldn't say 10-15 years if that is not the case. Also it's important how most people react when you say them how old are you, if they are just surprised or have it really hard to believe you.
Comparisons are best to do with your relatives - you can say what is their lifestyle and diet look like, are friends that you know well.
CR requires quite a lot of effort and logging your calories, checking your mirco and macronutrients, feeling cold, possibly having issues with sleep etc so I doubt that majority of people following any healthy lifestyle would go to that point by coincidence, whitout knowing that they are doing CR.

[Matt]

CR should keep people looking younger (it does it for mice, rats, dogs, monkeys etc...) but since humans don't live in cages indoors, there is going to external factors that will affect perceived age, too.

I'm 38-years-old in October but I still get mistaken for being in my late teens to early 20s (although, more so early 20s these days). I guess it helps that I also sound very young, too. Even on the phone people assume that I am very young, a teenager. 

Compared to my friends who I grew up with and went to school with, it does appear that we're aging very differently. They almost starting to seem like a different generation to me now.

Just some anecdotes...

I think it was like 2 years ago now, but I remember working in a temporary job and two girls (around age 20-22) asked about me and we just got talking and she asked how old I was. I told the one girl and she was in shock over it. She called her friend over and asked "how old do you think he is?" Instantly her friend replied "20 years old". I said no, and told her much age and she swore out loud lol and did not believe me at all. She was in disbelief, she hadn't ever seen someone look as young before.  So they assumed I was their age.

When I had a job in an office with a high rotation of new staff, these kinds of interactions would happen very frequently, almost the entire time I've been on CR. And in my early to late 20s, people assumed I was still a high school student. 

A comparison picture of me around 19-years-old and almost 37 years old.

 I created this thread on "End Aging Now": https://www.facebook.com/groups/endagingnow/posts/4322953774451725/

I ought to make a proper video and post it to YouTube at some point. People will get a much better idea. Maybe when I'm 40, and then people will take me more seriously lol. 🙂 Still just over 2 years to go.

I think to really look young on CR, you have to start it from a young age, before all the damage occurs. You have to protect your skin. And there is a trade off at some point where you might end up too skinny and consequently look older because of it. If you're starting off at an older age after a lot of aging and damage has taken place, you may end up looking older. Whereas if you stay lean from a young age and maintain that, you'll probably look fairly good.

However, in my own case, I'm only eating approx 1500 k/cal right now and maintaining a BMI of 19. I ate 1550k/cal back in 2005 and could only maintain a BMI of around 16. My metabolism seems to have slowed a lot. I can see this with significant drops in body temperature, fT3 and fT4 hormones. fT4 is usually stable up until middle age, but mine dropped by a lot while on CR. So, being able to better hold onto weight and fat in my face has helped me, too.

My guess is this is partly genetic in my case. My sister also looks quite young for her age and has all the CR biomarkers (except for as low body temperature) without doing CR. Her blood results are exceptionally good.

Edited July 3, 2022 by Matt

[mccoy]

7 hours ago, Matt said:

My guess is this is partly genetic in my case.

My guess is this is mainly genetic in your case!

[tanuki]

Thanks for extensive answer Matt, I know your case pretty good because I have often read your blog!
In terms of look I think you are quite of outlier even for CR, my theory is that's the result of starting it in your teens so it interfferred with your development and thanks to that you kept facial features more typical for young man/teenager. I think you also mentioned somewhere that you have little facial hair - that also helps a lot in terms of age perception.
Unfortunately for most of us starting it so early is no longer an option 😅