101 Year Old Runs London Marathon.
Do you remember this sensational story breaking across news outlets internationally? In April last year Fauja Singh astonished revelers when he completed the London marathon, frankly in a better time than most of us could have achieved.
Fauja Singh was born in 1911.
That was one year before the Titanic sank. One year before the First Balkan War commenced. Three years before the First World War began. Surely he was some kind of fitness fanatic all his life? Nope. He began training for his first marathon at the age of 89.
Fauja Singh was born in 1911.
That was one year before the Titanic sank. One year before the First Balkan War commenced. Three years before the First World War began. Surely he was some kind of fitness fanatic all his life? Nope. He began training for his first marathon at the age of 89.
So what is Singh's secret to such startling fitness when some of his peers got their first hip replacement 30 years prior? He said: child portions of meals.
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| The London Marathon has always attracted a huge variety of ages but Mr. Singh topped them all. Photo accredited to Martin Addison. (This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.) |
Cue: Calorie Restriction.
Calorie Restriction, or CR, unsurprisingly means cutting out calories. But, you won't achieve it by avoiding carbs like the plague; CR refers to a lower energy but still well balanced and nutritious diet. Basically, all the right components are there, there's just less of them.
I have decided to write this post because it ties very nicely into previous discussion on ageing and increasing lifespan yet it has also been implicated in delaying the onset of many age-related diseases. This brings us neatly back to a question posed in the previous post: should we be trying to find ways to maintain the quality of life as we age? If you dive into the scientific research behind "less food, better form" there actually turns out to be quite a lot there. CR has been linked to preventing diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's and heart disease - much more than just expanding waistlines.
A theory as to why dietary restriction seems to have these sought after effects in many different organisms is that the stress starvation puts our bodies under is actually a good thing. What kinds of activities might a cell undertake if it is under stress? It will stop making things, because it doesn't have the building blocks that come from our food, and has more time to repair things that are already there - our DNA for example. There are certain genes that are particularly active when we are stressed, aptly known as "stress response genes"; having the fix-it men of our cells around more often really doesn't seem like a bad thing.
WeightWatchers for scientists.
Studies centered on calorie restriction have been conducted in many different model organisms: worms, yeast, flies, rats, monkeys even. How? Well one quite obvious way is to let half your subjects gorge away to their hearts content whereas the other half are provided controlled meals. The technical term for gorging is "ad libitum"; your dieting organisms get about 60-70% of this ad libitum level. It is known that appetite decreases as we get older so an important thing to note is that whilst the gorging animals will generally choose to eat less as they approach the end of their lives, the CR intake is set from the beginning of the experiment and does not change. This means that the gap between the two calorie intakes will gradually close during the course of this experiment. This information comes from a review published in Cell Metabolism which also sets out other methods for studying dietary restriction, should you be interested the source is here.
Calorie restriction has made headlines, diet books and even TV documentaries (BBC's Eat, Fast and Live Longer), but the real question is: who has the willpower to do it?
This is really interesting! Quite a commitment though- changing every meal of your life in the hope that some scientists are right and it will increase life span/decrease ageing! Wonder if the placebo effect kicks on to an extent?! I.e you feel like you're being really good to your body, think you're fighting mental deterioration and death - so body does this. Who knows !? Anyway, love your writing style ... Keeps me engaged :) keep posting ... Want to know morrreeee! P.S cool title
ReplyDeleteI think your point about the placebo effect is a really interesting one and I hadn't thought about it in this context before. I've heard a lot about the placebo effect kicking in if people are given pills or injections but not anything about whether it occurs if their diets or other aspects of their lifestyles are changed. Worth looking in to!
ReplyDeleteInteresting, what are your thoughts on this? http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/778613
ReplyDeleteDo you think it's more important for people to watch what the eat, or eat less in this case? Many people struggle to do either!
ReplyDeleteAlso, if the number of 85 year olds is going to double over the next decade as the government predicts, can we actually afford people living even longer?
This is a very interesting point Dave - I've done lots of research on this too, and it's not just about living longer but being healthy at an older age. The NHS will surely benefit if there are less old people with cancer, alzheimers etc, and indeed less obese people with diabetes. Personally, I would think the world would be a better place.
DeleteWell the main idea behind calorie restriction is you do eat less, but you have to keep a balanced diet - its not the same as malnutrition! I think your second question is one we should really be thinking about. In my opinion its not as important to strive for longer life as it is to improve the quality of life for older people. Diseases like Alzheimer's are increasing prevalence and preventing this is more important research in my mind. Imagine living 40 years longer than average now, but imagine if you struggle to get out of the house for those 40 years because of severe osteoporosis - is it worth it?
ReplyDeleteReally well written and very interesting Joanna. Another interesting point is that our eyes can be hungrier than our stomachs. If we place large portions in front of ourselves then we are likely to eat it even though we are not hungry. Having smaller meals removes the risk of overeating and possibly allows our bodies to adjust and metabolise our food slower to utilise what little nutrients are ingested throughout the day. I would imagine this would only be a good thing when preparing and running a marathon.
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