A new paper finds that caloric restriction increases lifespan. It doesn't in humans. The only documented times it increases lifespan is in mice weaned from birth on a starvation diet.
Humans are not going to starve their babies.
Obesity certainly shortens lifespan but that doesn't make calories a scientific antimetabole. Yet despite this study being in mice, and therefore only EXPLORATORY, evangelists for longevity claims, the strange cousin of Singularity believers, are touting this as if it's meaningful.
a, The study design: 960 female DO mice were randomized to one of five diet intervention groups: ad libitum (AL); one day (1D) or two consecutive days (2D) per week fasting; or CR at 20% (20%) or 40% (40%) of estimated adult food intake. b, Kaplan–Meier survival curves by diet group. The dashed lines indicate the median lifespan. Censoring events are indicated by an ‘X’. c, Kaplan–Meier estimates of median (50% mortality) and maximum (90% mortality) lifespan by diet group, showing the percentage change relative to AL and the 95% confidence intervals (computed using R/survfit). n = 937 mice. d, Mortality doubling times estimated from a Gompertz log-linear hazard model, showing the percentage change relative to AL and the 95% confidence intervals (computed using R/flexsurvreg). n = 937 mice. e, Individual mouse lifespans (points) within diet groups. n = 188 (AL), n = 188 (1D), n = 190 (2D), n = 189 (20%) and n = 182 (40%). The box plots show the median lifespan (centre line), quartiles (box limits) and range (whiskers).
Read also: Forget Caloric Restriction - Gene Switching May Be A Better Route To Healthier Aging
There are 9,000 exploratory papers a month, they claim weedkillers cause infertility and lettuce is "correlated" to living longer, that is why they go into a separate pile from science. Certainly some are meaningful and science will figure that out, but appearing in a corporate journal doesn't make it science, it just means legacy media will publish your paper if it passes "editorial review" and your credit card has enough to pay the fee.
