Wab,
While I'm not well-read enough on the subject to give a good defense of CRON, I did want to make a few comments in gentle protest:
> * The J-shaped mortality curve that...
But,
-perhaps life extension doesn't kick in until you're at something of an extreme, AND at good nutrition, which most thin people aren't. Lab rats with CR but no ON did poorly.
-I've read that smoking confuses many BMI studies, because it causes people to be thinner, but less healthy, and die sooner
-if someone has an illness, excess weight might help them survive the illness. although maybe that should be counted!
> * Human's are already long-lived compared to rats et al, so the approach may not work for us (we have better antioxidant enzymes than other lab test subjects).
-Wolford claimed it has worked for all species tested. Tests were incomplete for longer lived species, but he wrote that it was looking good, so far.
-antioxidants just one theory of why CRON works
> * CR works on lab mice, but it doesn't appear to work on mice in the wild.
Not sure how in the wild, mice could get both CR and ON.
(For that matter, could be the same problem with people. Free will could destroy the ON as some people will cheat and eat too much ice cream and not enough vegetables, and suffer from malnutrition.)
> * CR on lab rats only works if you start them on the diet at a young age. For middle age rats (like us), it had no life extending effects at all.
Wolford specifically said the oppositte of this--that if started late, you get the benefit, but only the proportion appropriate for when you started.
I don't claim that everything the man said was true though... Nor do I think that life extension through CRON is realistic for many people... if anyone.
But I do like the idea, and wish there were more research on it.
Actually, I wish there were much more research on health and happiness, and much fewer shopping malls and fast food places, but that's another thread.
