Go Hungry and Live Longer?

Yes, restricting your intake of calories might actually lengthen your life.

Cutting calorie intake helped slow down age-related diseases. Studies show that mice with restricted diets live 29 percent longer than those with normal diets, and also have fewer cancerous tumors.

Even after two years, mice with unrestricted calorie intake had about four times as many tumors as those with restricted diets.

Dietary restriction appears to protect DNA from damage, increases enzyme’s ability to help repair DNA and significantly reduces the effects of proto-oncogenes (genes that can cause cancer when altered).

Scientists conclude that chronically hungry mice seem to live 15 to 50 percent longer and remain livelier than the mice with full bellies.

Some scientists believe that the results of these studies might be applicable to humans. But, remember, cutting calories is different from cutting nutrition. Your body still requires a minimum amount of vital nutrients — vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc. — each day to stay healthy.