This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA

Brian Vastag

JAMA. 2002;288:1342.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Decades of work in mice and monkeys has shown that losing calories lengthens lives: animals eating up to 50% less live up to 50% longer. Certain biological changes accompany the dieting. Calorie-restricted animals have lower body temperatures and blood insulin levels than their freely fed counterparts, while maintaining higher levels of the hormone dihydroepiandrosterone.

Now some evidence suggests that, in people, these three biomarkers are also linked to a longer life. Drawing on data from 700 healthy men in the long-running Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, researchers from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) report that men and monkeys with lower body temperatures, lower blood insulin levels, and higher blood levels of dihydroepiandrosterone tend to live longer than counterparts with normal readings.

While calorie-restriction experts have thought that hungry monkeys endure metabolic changes that lengthen life, none of the men with favorable biomarker readings was on a restricted . . . [Full Text of this Article]