The secret to a long and healthy life can be very simple

Somewhere in the near future in the restaurant, meet the woman and man on the first date. After nervously as the tension subsides, everything goes well. Male 33 years old, as he says, and for most of that time he alone. And although he does not say, it is obvious that he wants to settle down and start a family. The woman answers that she's 52 years old, been married, divorced and had kids in 20 years. He's stunned: she looks his age or even younger. It is the dream of Julie Mattison of the National Institute on aging (NIA) in the United States. She envisions a time when chronological age will be going every year, but biological age can be transferred to the age difference had ceased to matter, as it is now.

Sounds strange, but our society has made great strides in achieving this goal, thanks to advances in medicine and better healthy lifestyle. For example, in 2014 the medical research in the US showed that 16% of people aged 50 to 64 years every day suffer from chronic diseases. Thirty years ago this percentage was 23%. In other words, with increased life expectancy increases the length of healthy life. Life to years, not years to life.

So what we need to do to further increase the length and quality of our lives? Scientists around the world have different ideas, but Matheson and her colleagues believe that the answer is simple: diet. They believe that the key to a better old age will reduce the amount of food on our plates — so-called calorie restriction. This diet is not just reducing fatty foods in the diet from time to time; it is a gradual and careful reduction of the size of the portions. From the beginning 1930-x years of age 30% reduction of the daily intake of food is associated with a long-lasting, more active life worms, flies, rats, mice and monkeys. In other words, in the animal Kingdom cutting calories was the best means of prolonging life. It is possible that people should take note.

The Idea that what a person eats determines his health, no doubt is rooted deeply in the past. But, as is often the case in any science, the first detailed observations of this connection came from Ancient Greece. Hippocrates, one of the first doctors said that illness is a natural, not supernatural processes, and that many diseases were associated with gluttony; thick the Greeks usually die before lean, it was obvious and written on papyrus.

Spread from this epicenter of science, his ideas were adopted and adapted over the centuries. In the late 15th century al Cornaro, the feeble aristocrat from a small village near Venice, decided to check out one of the old wisdom for yourself.

If the indulgence was harmful, would it be useful dietary asceticism? To find out, Cornaro, at the age of 40 years only ate 350 grams of food per day that is equal to about 1000 calories. He ate bread, panatela or broth with eggs. Of meat he chose the veal, goat, beef, partridges, and poultry. Bought fish caught in local rivers.

Abstaining in quantity but not in variety, Cornaro said that he achieved "perfect health" to the time of his death 40 years later. It is believed that he died in 84 years — that's impressive for a 16 century, when people in 50-60 years were considered elderly. In 1591, his grandson published a work in three volumes under the title of "Talks on temperance", which was itself revised aging and restrictions in diet.

Cornaro argued that getting an extra surge of strength in his old age, the elderly, fully mastered his mental abilities, will be able to pass on his teachings and on. With his diet beauty has become the lot of the elderly not the young.

In search of longevity

Cornaro was interesting, but his conclusions cannot be taken for fact in any of the scientific disciplines. Even if he was an honest and sick of nearly half a century, which is unlikely, it's just the word of one person.

However, since fundamental study, conducted on white rats, in 1935, showed that dietary restriction is 30-50% longer life expectancy, delay the onset of age-related diseases. Of course, what works for rats may not work for people.

Long-term trials that follow people from early age until death, are rare. "I can't imagine that the study of the duration of human life could become a funded research program," says Matheson. "Even if we take people aged 40-50 years, it will take another 40-50 years to study." In addition, to ensure that extraneous factors — exercise, Smoking, treatment, state of mind, did not affect the final results of the study, it is almost impossible for our social and cultural complex types.

That's why at the end of 1980-ies was initiated by two independent long-term studies — one in the NIA, and the other at the University of Wisconsin to study calorie restriction and aging in monkeys rhesus monkey. We not only share 93% DNA with these primates, we age exactly the same.

Gradually after middle age (about 15 years in monkeys rhesus monkey), back starts to ache, the skin and muscles begin to SAG, and where they are still growing, they are not blackish-brown, and gray. Similarity penetrate deeper. These primates manifestation of cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases is gaining momentum with age. "This is an excellent model for the study of aging," says Rosalyn Anderson, gerontologist from the University of Wisconsin.

And they are easy to control. They were fed a specially made cookies, so the diet 76 monkeys at the University of Wisconsin and 121 NIA was adapted to their age, weight and natural appetite. All monkeys received a full set of nutrients and minerals that are needed. Just half of the monkeys ate 30% less.

And was not malnourished or hungry. Take the Sherman, 43-monkey from NIA. Matheson says that when he was put on a diet with calorie restriction in 1987, at the age of 16 years, Sherman showed no obvious signs of hunger, which his species is well characterized.

Sherman is the oldest rhesus monkeys of known almost 20 years older than the average representative of his species raised in captivity. As the young monkey fell ill and died, he seemed to be impervious to old age. Even in 30 years when he was considered old, he looked and acted differently.

The same is true, to varying degrees, for the rest of his experimental groups in NIA. "We have reduced the incidence of diabetes and decrease the incidence of cancer in groups CR," says Matheson. In 2009 at the University of Wisconsin had published similar impressive results.

Their monkeys with restricted diets not only look younger — had more hair, less gray hair, more brown, less grey — feeding their standard counterparts, they were healthier and the internal hurt less. The percentage of occurrence of adenocarcinoma of the intestine is reduced by half. The risk of cardiovascular diseases too. And while 11 monkeys from group receiving everything in full, got diabetes, and 5 pre-diabetic state, regulation of blood glucose looked healthier among all the monkeys on restricted diets. They were not afraid of diabetes.

In total only 13% of the monkeys in the group with restricted diets died of age-related diseases in 20 years. In the group of monkeys ad libitum (who received a full ration), 37% died at this age, almost three times more. The 2014 update of the study showed that the percentage remained the same.

"We have demonstrated that aging in primates can be manipulated," says Anderson. "This is partly silent, because it's obvious, but conceptually, this is very important; it means that the aging is a reasonable target for clinical intervention and treatment."

If aging could be put off, all the associated diseases will also follow suit. "Treatment of a particular disease at a time is not really will extend the life of a man, because he will die from something else," says Anderson. "If you cured all cancers, you will not be able to save a man from cardiovascular diseases, dementia or disorders related to diabetes. But if you postpone retirement, you decide all at once."

The Decrease in food intake definitely affected the health of the monkeys, but to restrict people's calories in the real world is much more complicated. First, our access to cheap and high calorie food much easier. Meals can be enjoyed at home. The weight is typed by itself, even to do nothing.

"Genetics is involved in all this and some people harder to stay in shape than others," says Anderson. "We all know people who can eat a cake and nothing happens. Other extra brownie makes to take the trousers on the size more."

Ideally, the amount and types of food that we eat should be tailored to who we are — our genetic predisposition to weight gain, to how we metaboliziruet sugar, just accumulate fat and how to relate to food psychologically. Currently, all this is beyond the scope of scientific instruction, and perhaps always will be.

But the predisposition to obesity may be used as a guide to life decisions, and not as inevitable. "Personally, I have a genetic history of obesity running through my family, and I practice a flexible form of caloric restriction," says Susan Roberts, a nutritionist from tufts University in Boston. Currently, there are a lot of useful tools to control their own index...