Does Eating Less Mean Living Longer?

Scientists believe they've found the Fountain of Youth. It's in your refrigerator.

Josh McMichael hopes so. "I think in the next 50 years, things are going to get crazy and interesting, so I want to stick around for as long as I can," said the 36-year-old software designer.

That's why two years ago he joined a research study at Washington University School of Medicine looking at calorie restriction as a way to improve health and life span.

Since joining, his weight has dropped from 230 pounds to 195 pounds, his blood pressure, cholesterol and other health numbers are more than healthy, his alertness and other mental faculties have improved.

Researchers say they don't know if McMichael will live longer, but they know he has beaten back conditions that would shorten his life and weigh down his old age.

All from reducing his calorie intake by about 20 percent.

Living Longer
For two years, scientists at three research universities have studied calorie restriction under a program called CALERIE, Comprehensive Assessment of Long-Term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy.

Practitioners of calorie restriction reduce their food intake by 20 percent to 30 percent. They switch to foods dense in nutrition and cut back on high-calorie, low-nutrient food.

Doing so, practitioners say, reverses the effects of aging and prevents age-onset diseases such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis and cardiovascular disease.

Calorie restriction caught the attention of the scientific community in the last few years when researchers reported that mice, bugs, rats and, more recently, monkeys lived up to 60 percent longer on calorie restricted diets.

Even when the animals died, "For a third of the animals who are calorie restricted, we can't find a cause of death," said Dr. Luigi Fontana, a physician studying calorie restriction at Washington University and in Rome. That means the animals simply died from old age, instead of disease.