Calorie restriction, a diet that is low in calories and high in nutrition, may not be as effective at extending life in people as it is in animal studies, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Previous research had shown that laboratory animals given 30 percent to 50 percent less food can live up to 50 percent longer.
Because of those findings, some people have adopted calorie restriction in the hope that they can lengthen their lives.
But the new research suggests calorie restriction diet may not have the desired effect unless people on calorie restriction also pay attention to their protein intake.
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In an article published online this month in the journal Aging Cell, investigators point to a discrepancy between humans and animals on calorie restriction.
In the majority of the animal models of longevity, extended lifespan involves pathways related to a growth factor called IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor-1), which is produced primarily in the liver. Production is stimulated by growth hormone and can be reduced by fasting or by insensitivity to growth hormone.
In calorie-restricted animals, levels of circulating IGF-1 decline between 30 percent and 40 percent.
"We looked at IGF-1 in humans doing calorie restriction," says first author Luigi Fontana, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at Washington University and an investigator at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome, Italy.
"For years, we have been following a cohort of people from the CR Society who have been on long-term calorie restriction. We found no difference in IGF-1 levels between people on calorie restriction and those who are not."
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