Hello. Where is everyone?

[Jim Pearce]

Hi! I've been a member since 2018 but wonder where the heck is everyone? For all the excitement about CR why so little activity here?

[Dean Pomerleau]

Hi Jim,

Part of the reason it is so quiet around here is that the forum was off-line for four months up until a couple days ago, so most people have not (yet) come back. But honestly even before the outage participation on this forum had dropped a lot relatively to the good old days.

There are almost certainly several reasons for the drop off, but from my perspective, probably the most significant and relevant one is that doubts have arisen about just how much serious calorie restriction (i.e. that results in a BMI < 18.5) will extend human lifespan/healthspan relative to a healthy lifestyle and diet that is less calorie-restricted (i.e. that results in a BMI ~20-22).

Back in the heady days of the early 2000s and right up through much of the 2010s, it was hoped that cutting calories by 30-40% (typically resulting in a BMI of 15-18) starting around 30 or 40 might greatly extend human lifespan, by say 20 or 30 years. But the general consensus based on newer science (including the 40 year primate CR studies), while inconclusive, suggests a much smaller lifespan benefit (maybe as little as a couple years) when compared to a healthy diet and lifestyle.

We did a deep dive on this topic quite a while back in this thread:

 

I think there are still a few diehards who are more optimistic about CR's potential for extending lifespan/healthspan, but not many of them post here anymore. Longecity.org seems to be the more active forum for life extension enthusiasts these days, although I don't think CR is discussed there very often either.

--Dean

[Jim Pearce]

I find the info seemingly threatening the premise to be flawed. 

Jean Calmente smoked. And ate 2 pounds of chocolate a week. So if she lived to be 122, it has to be suspected that if she lived applying the ideas we've bought into instead, she would probably have lived much longer.

So the age 122 "goalpost" is flawed.

About the mice...Dr Brenner pointed out they were confined and given access to all the food they needed.

Sounds to me like they were perfect analogs to those of us consuming a western diet. We aren't confined but many of us are as inactive as if we were.

That combo of being largely inactive with ready access to unlimited calories probably accelerates aging.

The ad libitum mice probably didn't age normally. They probably aged faster than they otherwise would have. 

So calorie restriction may have just normalized aging in the CR mice.

Did it extend their lifespan? Yes, it did, compared to the others.

Jean Calmente is an imperfect goal to shoot for, considering she probably wasn't applying any of the ideas we like and she smoked and ate junk food.

She might have just been an outlier mouse that would have been a rare occurrence in the control group.

Extreme luck and winner of a genetic lottery. We can't know how long she may have lived if she was one of us.

Not until much later when many more of us have lived a long life.

[Jim Pearce]

I do intend to read through all the info you referred me to later and also, I, too, believe CR probably needs to be moderated later to avoid frailty. I just don't believe I'm anywhere near frailty yet and hope to to avoid it.

[Jim Pearce]

I would, however, choose frailty over death..I could pass my time watching TV, reading, and being careful and still enjoy being alive.

I don't believe in any afterlife, so I'm going to try to milk all I can out of this one...

[Alex K Chen]

rapamycin.news/latest has attracted a bunch of new people into longevity, as does Bryan Johnson's crowd, but the number of people here who also post to rapa.news is very very low (@kpfleger among them)

interest in aging/longevity is way higher than before, but people just don't like calorie restriction. It's really hard, unless you do semaglutide (which has also become a fad), and people who do semaglutide don't say they're doing CR, even though it appears that semaglutide doesn't compromise CR's benefits.

There are numerous discord/telegram/slack channels, but they are just emblematic of trends towards increased #WalledGardens online, which is tragic. Forums are far better for long editable content and I avoid posting anything substantive in those channels if I can

Moreover, with AGI/ASI timelines shorter than ever, interest in AI is higher than before, as is belief that "AI will fix longevity or kill us all, and CR isn't necessary"

Edited October 16 by Alex K Chen

[Jim Pearce]

I have found CR much easier since I bought my Samsung watch. The app that goes with it makes tracking my all my main nutrition numbers really easy.

I've also found a way to like broccoli a lot more than I used to. I spray apple cider vinegar on it. Liking broccoli enough to eat a lot more of it without having to "make" myself do it has really helped!

I mix a serving (85 grams) of steamed collard greens in with my low sodium chili beans and a little ketchup that has 50% less sugar & sodium. Yum!

I mainly eat oatmeal w/blueberries, low sodium chili beans, red onions, collard greens, broccoli, prunes, dates, Morningstar sausage patties, Morningstar spicy beanburgers, lightly salted rice cakes, Sara Lee 45 calorie whole grain white bread, and about 10-12 pounds of strawberries a week.

I have no interest in making eating less boring. Make eating more "fun" and of course it'll be hard to eat less.

Minimize variety and you've got it licked.

Edited October 13 by Jim Pearce

[Jim Pearce]

This place is DEAD....