By: E. Douglas Kihn

According to a study published in the journal Science (August, 1999), a reduced-calorie diet can cause mice to live up to 50% longer. The two researchers from the University of Wisconsin, Madison said that their genetic analysis of mice showed that genes that normally deteriorate with age tended to continue functioning in a youthful way when the mice were "underfed."

Research laboratory owners have known for 60 years that reducing calories fed to laboratory animals significantly increased their life spans and overall health, thus increasing profits for the owners. Special diets, exercise, playmates--nothing works like reducing calories. What hasn't been understood is how reducing calories works. Finally, researchers have some insight into the mechanics of this phenomenon.

For mice fed the 25% calorie-restricted diet, about 84% of the genetic alterations associated with aging were completely or partially suppressed. At the molecular level, calorie-restricted mice appear to be biologically younger than animals receiving the control diet. (The control diet allows mice to eat until they cannot eat any more.) This clearly suggests that the reduction of calorie intake not only increases life span in mice, but seems to affect a broad spectrum of age-associated changes at the gene expression level.

Oxygen Radicals
Many of the genes affected by aging are those that help the body rid itself of oxygen radicals (free radicals), chemicals produced during the process of metabolizing calories in cells. Oxygen radicals are known to be damaging to DNA, the body's genetic material.

Mice fed the full-calorie diet tended to lose the benefit of these oxygen radical control genes with age. The genes continued to work vigorously, however, in mice fed the calorie-restricted diet.

To Eat or Not To Eat…
That Is the Question
Americans are obsessed with trying to figure out the "right" foods to eat. This issue was largely irrelevant in the study where longevity is concerned, as long as the animals got their normal range of food containing the vitamins and minerals they normally need. The studies indicate that fat, carbohydrate, and protein all seem irrelevant, as long as the overall calorie count is reduced.

These findings are in direct opposition to the prevailing opinion in the U.S. promoted by the food corporation, food stores, diet gurus, and nutritionists who all loudly tout their lists of "good" and "bad" foods. And of course, the problem with adhering to a list of "good" foods, besides the fact that is does not extend your life, is that you can only be good for so long. When you're sick of being good, you will be "bad." This is the essence of the diet/binge neurosis that afflicts so many people in this country.

Let's face it. If the effects of diets and low-calorie food were permanent, we'd all be skinny and healthy, and the food, diet, and medical industries would be losing trillions of dollars. Instead, the U.S. leads the world in rates of obesity, adult-onset diabetes, and childhood obesity.

Willpower, Dieting, And Fasting
Willpower does not work in the long run. There always will be ice cream, cookies, butter and hamburgers available on every street corner and in every home. You cannot make yourself stay away from these foods for the rest of your life. Sooner or later, you're going to be "bad."

Some people think they can walk around with a calculator all day and count their calories, and thereby reduce their caloric intake by some numerical percentage. It would be possible for a limited period of time, but not for 50 or 80 years; it's just not natural. That's why this scheme is doomed to failure.

Some think they can fast periodically, deny themselves food one day per week or one week per year. But I have to wonder about the free radicals piling up in the body during the other days of the week or year. It's a little like cleaning your house once per week or once per year, and living in a dirty house the rest of the time, or cleaning up as you go every day, and living in a clean house all of the time.

Hunger, Your Best Friend
What about listening to the true expert inside you: your hunger instinct? Hunger is an empty feeling in the stomach region which says, "I'm out of ready fuel. I am going to sharpen your thinking, your vision, your hearing, and lift your spirits so you can go out into nature and gather/hunt food. In the meantime, I will have to clean myself out by converting garbage into fuel." When we are truly hungry, the body is forced to utilize impacted fecal matter, fat cells, tumors and cholesterol, and convert them into fuel. This is a commonsense explanation of why decreased calories dramatically increases the life span, and fits very well with the new scientific explanation involving DNA research.

This is why the more excess weight one is carrying, the weaker the hunger feelings. When the body is overloaded, it assumes that the winter is here. During the winter there is no food available, and so there is no reason to go outside and look for it. That is why overweight people never feel true hunger.

And yet, so many Americans believe that illness and unhappiness are good reasons to eat. Tiredness, headaches, shaking, nausea, and so on are common reasons for overloading the body with food and increasing oxygen radicals. Keep in mind that for 100,000 years, we did not have food in refrigerators and restaurants and stores. Getting food meant hard work. When you are sick, you can't work hard. Animals don't eat when they are not feeling well; neither should you. But people are intentionally and unintentionally sedating their emotions with food, as well as eating for all kinds of intellectual reasons.

Hunger Awareness Training
We must learn to listen to our bodies and wait for hunger, and to stop when we are comfortable. By stopping when comfortable, a person can never gain weight, regardless of what food is eaten! When you eat a meal rich in calories, it takes a small portion to reach that "satisfied" feeling, and many hours will pass before hunger returns. Whereas when you eat a plate of vegetables, it takes a large quantity to satisfy, and hunger will return in just a few hours.

By waiting for hunger, a person can lose weight and can clean out garbage in the body, thus increasing the life span. It takes time for self-trust to build, but once achieved, its effects are permanent, because it is based on self-reliance, not willpower or self-denial. Hunger awareness always involves emotional awareness and emotional growth.

True hunger really must become one of your favorite friends--someone who is always right, who will never let you down, your daily companion who postpones your mortality. Hunger is not the enemy to be fought against, but your best friend who guards your very life.

E. Douglas Kihn, O.M.D., LAc, is a Licensed Acupuncturist and a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. Dr. Doug has been in practice in Los Angeles since 1987.