Mon, Sep 13, 2010
Many consider that a few pounds should naturally be accepted as one gets older. However, the effect of letting your belly expand during your middle age can decrease your chance to living longer.
Studies have shown that the chance of living longer is closely linked with weight gaining in middle age. A study published in the British Medical Journal says that how much weight we gain in middle age, is a vital determinant of longevity.
In order to remain healthy women should have a regulated body weight and also be mentally sound.
A study from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts together with University of Warwick in Coventry scrutinized data from 1976 involving above 17,000 female nurses from America.
It was found that those who were obese in their middle age had a 79 percent lower chance of healthy survival compared to others having had their weight regulated.
Those who had a body mass index above 30 were considered as obese while lean women had a BMI ranging from 18.5 to 22.9.
The study did equally demonstrate that an increased in weight from the age of 18 up to middle age was a significant factor to predict the healthy longevity of a woman.
A 5 percent decrease in the chance of living longer was experienced if one increased in weight by 2.2lb after the age of 18. For women who were already overweight at 18 and increase in weight by 22lb until middle age had a very poor healthy survival chance. The likelihood of these women living healthy decreased by 82 percent in comparison to women who remained lean.
The nurses did constantly administrate information on their weight, height, lifestyle and history of diseases. An update of the questionnaire was administrated at an interval of two years for above 20 years. The study provides with valuable insight showing how weight gain affected longevity.
Calorie Restriction Is Really Good
A more recent study published in Science Magazine entitled Extending Healthy Life Span—From Yeast to Humans by Luigi Fontana, Linda Partridge and Valter D. Longo confirms that calorie restriction is highly associated to healthiness and longevity.
It has been shown that dietary restriction for organisms like rodents can increase their lifespan significantly compared to those having a normal diet. The same effect is seen when the nutrient sensing pathways are reduced through some type of chemical inhibitors or mutation. So for a rodent both a reduction in the activity of the nutrient-sensing pathway and dietary restriction will slow the aging process and risk of aging diseases.
The benefit of dietary restriction goes beyond slowing aging it has shown to protect rhesus monkeys against cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. For human it does equally show protective attributes against these various age-associated concerns.
Humans having a mutated or simply modified growth hormone receptor do seldom suffer from diabetes and tumors, and similarly to other organisms a change in the genetic expression in the nutrient-sensing pathways does increase human longevity. If humans practice dietary restrictions than the activity of the nutrient-sensing pathway can be reduced inducing a mechanism which slows aging.
So the list of potential benefits of dietary restriction to increase human lifespan and healthiness is long. There are a few challenges that science still has to unravel to assure its revolutionary ability to sustainably increase human lifespan or simply slow the aging process.
Source: Dailymail and Science Magazine
