How to live forever the Fasting Episode   0- 1:00   Jody: Guys, I don’t want to die.   Matt: Shut your mouth   Jody: Sorry.  I’m just scared.   Mike: Seriously, keep your pie hole shut   Jody: What did I say?     Matt: You’re not hearing us.  Just don’t eat, man. You can talk.  Just quit shoving calories down your gullet.   Jody: And I’ll live forever?   Mike: Well…….maybe………   1:00 - 2:40   Mike: Ok, so no you’re not going to live forever, but if you want to extend your life, then honestly, simply eating less is probably the absolute best way to do it.  And that’s a pretty cheap, easy intervention.   Matt: Except it’s not completely simple. Yes, calorie restriction has to been shown to really lead to increased longevity in a lot of animal models.  It not only leads to longer life, but better longer life as well and extends median and maximal life span in rats, mice, fish, flies, worms, monkeys, and yeast.   Jody: That’s really exciting.  I can’t wait to tell my pet yeast and flies. They’re gonna be so pumped.  What about humans? That’s what I happen to be. Or pretty close to it.   Mike: Great point.  Yes, it’s pretty difficult to replicate some of these studies in human.  You can double a fly’s life span in a study and it only takes about 2 weeks to get results and no one is crying over not being able to go out for pizza with their friends.  So, it’s both hard to extrapolate this data, and it’s hard to repeat in humans.   Matt: Right, but we we do know a few things…...we think.  The fact that we see this effect in multiple species means it “probably” applies to many other species not studied, including us because it doesn’t seem to be a species specific adaptation, and when it applies to primates, it usually applies to us.  And there was that really great U of Wisc study of primates where they restricted calories by 30%, and the monkeys were living to be the equivalent of like 130 in human years. And, they were living better! Less calories reduces metabolic rate and oxidative damage and improve age-related markers like insulin resistance.  So, you don’t just live longer. You actually age more slowly, which is different. It’s better.   2:40 - 3:50   Jody: Sold.  I’ll just cut 30% off my cheesburger and fries and live forever with the amazing, disease free body I have now.   Mike: Well…….if it was that simple we wouldn’t be talking about it.     Matt: You’re gonna rain on our parade and talk about the brain integrity study, aren’t you.   Mike: Yep.  It’s almost like you and I have discussed this before.  Jody, before you or your grey mouse lemur primate go balls to the wall with calorie restriction you should check out the study at Nature.com just this year.  Yes, these lemurs lived longer.  50% longer. So, translating that to humans that’s like going from 80 to 120, and they seemed to live better like the other studies with reduced aging-associated diseases and preserved brain white matter. BUT, they had accelerated loss of grey matter in the cerebrum.     Matt: Ok, ok.  So, yes, Jody probably doesn’t have much grey matter to spare. But what does this mean exactly? They still had all those benefits, just like all the other studies as well, and this one, single downside. Seems like the balance of benefit to harm is still pretty heavily in the benefit category, right?   3:50 - 4:50   Mike: Well, probably.  And like you and I have discussed in the past, we may be able to moderate or eliminate that downside by getting a little more clever than a simple, strict 30% calories restriction forever.   Jody: The suspense is killing me.  Any chance we skip the talk of IGF, gene transcription, protein synthesis modulators, etc and just tell me what to do.   Matt: We got you.  We’ll give you some action points, but let’s geek out just a bit more for the science nerds out there.  Let’s dig into this lemur study. I love this study because these primates are very similar to humans, not just metabolically, but also when it comes to their brain