The Skinny Kid

Who can resist a headline like that one? As it turns out, however, there are some drawbacks.

ScienceDaily: Could Carrots Be The Secret To A Long-life And Sex Appeal?

Researchers at the Universities of Glasgow and Exeter have found that eating certain plant substances can slow down the rate of ageing - and that females prefer mates that will be long-lived.Carotenoids are naturally-occurring yellow and red pigments found in plants. Animals that eat those plants can then use the pigments to make themselves colourful in order to attract mates. But carotenoids are also antioxidants, which improve an animal’s ability to combat oxidative stress and strengthen its immune system.

This latest research has found for the first time that males eating more carotenoids were better able to protect their cells from damage and so lived longer - and that females found these long-lived males particularly attractive.

The work was carried out on sticklebacks, and compared the fate of fish that all received the same basic diet but had different amounts of carotenoid supplement. Male sticklebacks need carotenoids to produce the red throat patch that they develop in the breeding season and display to females.

Not being a stickleback, but being a fairly regular carrot eater, I have not noticed swarms of female humans rushing to mate with me. The well-known article outlining the longevity/beta carotene impacts on human sexuality was decidedly less encouraging.

Okay, but what about women who don’t share April’s natural attraction to underweight men? Women like my girlfriend, for instance, who was happy enough to see the first ten pounds drop off my calorie-restricted frame but likes the shape I’m in less and less as my weight keeps dropping?

“You might have to change girlfriends,” Paul quips, though it’s not exactly clear to me he’s kidding. He seems quite serious, for instance, as he barrels on into a brief oration on the beauty of the calorie-restricted male physique and the need to rethink our cultural standards of male beauty. “Men are stereotyped and still associated with Arnold Schwarzenegger and that kind of thing,” he complains. “But to be honest, when I see a man like Michael, I think that’s how a man should be. I think he looks absolutely handsome—intelligent, dapper, sexy. It’s a mark of intelligence, of how a great role model should be: slim, bright, calorie-restricted!”

All eyes now fall on Michael, naturally, and for the first time, I get a good look at his hands. And though I’m sure the light must be playing tricks on me, I can’t help thinking that those hands are actually a vivid shade of …

“I know, isn’t it pretty?” asks April. “I love the orange. I call him the Orange One.”

Michael smiles, just a little. “I consume an enormous amount of carotenoids—beta-carotene and lycopene—which are found in foods like carrots, kale, tomatoes,” he explains. “If I had skin like yours, the effect probably would be barely noticeable, but because my skin is an extremely pasty white to begin with … ”

“So wait,” Adam interjects, “you eat so much kale, tomatoes, and carrots that your hands actually turn orange?”

“Yes, isn’t it pretty?” April asks again.

And sure, I’m thinking, maybe it is. And maybe if I look a little harder, I’ll eventually see with my own eyes just how pretty Michael’s orange hands really are. But first, I’m going to need a moment to deal with the slight attack of existential vertigo that’s hitting me just now. All evening, I have let the bubbling enthusiasm and essential reasonableness of my guests carry me past the little weirdnesses that go with being calorie-restricted. But the weirdnesses are starting to pile up, and my guests are looking weirder and weirder themselves, like emissaries from a future I’m not sure could ever feel like home: a world where the food grows in vats, where the porn industry just barely survives on government subsidies, where the physically ideal male has the BMI of Mary-Kate Olsen and the skin tones of an Oompa-Loompa.

I take a deep breath then and think, A world where 80 is the new 40. And suddenly, all those little weirdnesses seem quite manageable again.”

You’ll have to make up your own mind on this one.

Human Growth Hormone (HGH) has been promoted both as an elixir for youth and for weight loss. Given our interest in both of these topics we were intrigued when we were asked to review Somatropin.net, a web site dedicated to HGH.

According to their site:

HGH is a natural substance that is excreted by the pituitary glands in the human body. As a person ages, the level of HGH that their body produces decreases. However, human growth hormone drugs work to raise a person’s levels of HGH back to a youth-like level, therefore aiding in weight loss.

Normally, a person’s body uses all of their glucose for energy before seeking that energy from their fat reserves. Human growth hormone forces your body to seek energy from the fat reserves first. This results in significant weight loss.

Because human growth hormone forces your body to burn fat for energy, it means that you will lose weight even in your inactive periods.

The site also notes:

Human growth hormone (HGH) has been called a miracle anti-aging drug — it’s widely used in alternative clinics for the elderly as a means of rejuvenation. Human growth hormone is an effective anti-ageing drug due to its ability to return an adult’s hormone levels to those of their youth.

On the other hand, skeptics say:

HGH is useful for treating growth hormone deficiency in children and adults and has several other proven (FDA-approved) uses. But the the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists has warned that the clinical use of growth hormone as an anti-aging treatment or for patients with ordinary obesity is not recommended.

Robert N. Butler, M.D., the noted gerontologist who founded and heads the International Longevity Center-USA has warned that, “So-called anti-aging medicine is largely a sham. We simply do not have the equivalent of a blood pressure cuff for testing aging.”

Given that other longevity markers tend to be those that reduce metabolism (altitude and caloric restriction among them) there is also reason to question whether using HGH can prolong life. However, I suspect that many people would rather look younger than actually turn back the biological clock. As Billy Crystal’s “Fernando” used to say, “it is better to look good than to feel good.”

Only you and your doctor can determine whether HGH, or any treatment for that matter, is appropriate for you. Being the back to basics type, it is unlikely I will be trying HGH until more studies have been done. The old calorie reduction and exercise remains our plan of action.

Aspirin May Help You Live Longer

A study found women who took aspirin regularly had a 25% lower risk of death from all causes, not just heart problems. The new findings actually contradict prior research, so experts say women should not take aspirin without talking to their doctor first.

Don’t you just love contradictory studies? At least you shouldn’t have to worry if you’re taking aspirin for the occasional headache.

Eat isotopes to live longer

Food containing heavy isotopes of hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen could slow down the aging process. That’s the claim1 of Oxford-based researcher Mikhail Shchepinov, who suggests that seeding key biological molecules with deuterium or carbon-13 could drastically reduce oxidative damage or even avert it altogether.Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are a staple of ageing research, as they are believed to cause cumulative damage to biomolecules such as DNA, proteins, and lipids. Typically, breaking a carbon-hydrogen bond is the rate-limiting step of these reactions. But if the carbon or hydrogen atoms involved were replaced by a heavier version of the same element (13C or D), the reaction will be slowed down due to a well-established phenomenon known as the kinetic isotope effect.

I’ll tell you what… you try it first.

Those Catholics will do anything to attract more people to the profession, it seems.

Catholic World News : Monks may live longer

Monks may live longer than other men, according to a German study.The Benedictine publication Missionblatter has published the findings of a demographic survey by Marc Luy of Rostock, Germany, who analyzed the age of monks in different monasteries and found that on average, monks live 4 years longer than other men.

Of course, given that each year of monastic life feels like a decade, in “human” years monks live forty years longer!

Those Catholics will do anything to attract more people to the profession, it seems.

Catholic World News : Monks may live longer

Monks may live longer than other men, according to a German study.The Benedictine publication Missionblatter has published the findings of a demographic survey by Marc Luy of Rostock, Germany, who analyzed the age of monks in different monasteries and found that on average, monks live 4 years longer than other men.

Of course, given that each year of monastic life feels like a decade, in “human” years monks live forty years longer!

Vitamin and Supplements > Folate and B12 may influence cognition in seniors (Found via the Tao of Health)

Folate and vitamin B12, two important nutrients for the development of healthy nerves and blood cells, may work together to protect cognitive function among seniors, reports a new epidemiological study from the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University (USDA HNRCA). According to Martha Savaria Morris, PhD, epidemiologist at the USDA HNRCA, “we found a strong relationship between high folate status and good cognitive function among people 60 and older who also had adequate levels of vitamin B12.” The study, published in the January 2007 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, also determined that low vitamin B12 status was associated with increased cognitive impairment.

Vitamin B12 is normally consumed in meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy products, and folate is found in leafy green vegetables, citrus fruits, and beans. Although folate occurs naturally in many foods, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1998 required that all enriched cereal-grain products be fortified with folic acid, the synthetic form of folate, in order to help prevent birth defects in infants.

Better to stick with the natural sources, we say. You should be eating them anyway.

Some interesting graphs over at Disease Proof: Animal Fat and Cancer

In preparation for this post I decided to sift through DiseaseProof’s archives for posts discussing the link between animal products and cancer. And in the end, even I was surprised by the number of them….

Now this brings me to these graphs, which I’ve been sitting on for a while now, and honestly I don’t know why. Dr. Fuhrman sent them over months ago with this batch of graphs that illustrate the relationship between animal and plant foods and heart disease. So, without any further ado, check out Dr. Fuhrman’s graphs on animal fat and cancer:

Obviously there could be other factors at play that affect cancer. But these graphs (there are several showing the regression for animal fat against specific forms of the disease) are pretty compelling visuals.

The Scientist : Re-engineering Humans

Evolution has given humans a beautifully orchestrated set of genetic programs to carry most of us through to sexual maturity, but we have also been given a brain large enough to ponder our demise. Yet, if the molecular, cellular, and genetic machinery used to conceive, develop, and operate a human were designed rather than the result of evolution, humans would be different and life would look different. This is our challenge. We asked experts in gerontology, neuroscience, genetics, cell biology, development, and health and fitness science to devise a human that would stand the test of time. Here’s what they’ve come up with.

Some interesting, sometimes out-there ideas for how we can make ourselves better.

We’ve heard French women don’t get fat because they eat in moderation and eat enough soup, vegetables etc to make their meats and desserts less of a percentage of the total. Turns out, they get other benefits.

In land of fatty food, they lean to old age | Chicago Tribune

The women of France, a land renowned for a cuisine laden with fats and calories, have the longest life expectancy of any nation on Earth except Japan. A girl born in France in 2006 can expect to live until at least 84, surpassing a baby boy’s potential by seven years, according to new government statistics.Only Japanese women have a longer life expectancy: 85.6 years. American women can expect a life span of 80.1 years, recent statistics show.

To be expected, I suppose. But the article also hits on another fact that jibes with things we’ve heard:

Some of the longest-living Frenchwomen reside in the southwest’s Midi-Pyrenees region, which is famous for its fatty foie gras–made from the livers of force-fed ducks and geese–and rustic red wines. Here, where women say moderation is the key to indulging in their favorite foods, female life expectancy is a full year above the national average.

Turns out that many of the areas with high percentages of centenarians are mountainous. One theory is that by adapting to lower oxygen levels the body is conserving energy.