44 replies to this topic

[DukeNukem]

I think the Okinawans, who eat a CR/paleo diet, are the best example of CR working.

[nowayout]

The implicit assumptions in the title that CR is the only road to living longer (assuming it even works), and that not being on CR should shorten life, is not based on any evidence.

[cheezeweezel]

From a male perspective especially, most women don't like skinny weak guys, they want a strong man to protect, provide and look after their family, and that requires additional calories!

How would you know? You're just a beagle.

[nowayout]

I think the Okinawans, who eat a CR/paleo diet, are the best example of CR working.

Maybe it is not the CR aspect of their diet. Maybe it is some other property of their diet, their lifestyle, or genetics.

[Snoopy]

From experience.

[e Volution]

I haven't yet seen anyone mention the fact that Lou is a famous high achieving professional bodybuilder... Almost by default that signals superior genetics, a well nurtured fetal environment, good upbringing, etc... I have started to notice that most sports people and olympians appear to be more attractive than the general population, of course it could be confirmation bias and the fact they are on average much more physically fit. But come London Olympics later this year keep an eye on the gymnasts, particularly the men. In my experience it full of good looking, extremely symmetrical bodies and faces. I think what we are looking at is the survivorship bias, of the millions of those who tried to become professionals the ones with the best genes for recovery, strength, athleticism, hand eye coordination, speed, etc, were all selected for and became winners. And all these physical benefit are likely to confer fitness to general health, ageing, and longevity. My personal hypothesis at least

And I strongly agree comparing Arnold to Lou is misguided... One of the biggest movie stars of all time (I argue the biggest), plus a lengthy career in politics, would have incurred an huge debt of stress that Lou likely never experienced. Low level chronic stress really is incredibly ageing...

[scottknl]

I haven't yet seen anyone mention the fact that Lou is a famous high achieving professional bodybuilder... Almost by default that signals superior genetics, a well nurtured fetal environment, good upbringing, etc... I have started to notice that most sports people and olympians appear to be more attractive than the general population, of course it could be confirmation bias and the fact they are on average much more physically fit. But come London Olympics later this year keep an eye on the gymnasts, particularly the men. In my experience it full of good looking, extremely symmetrical bodies and faces. I think what we are looking at is the survivorship bias, of the millions of those who tried to become professionals the ones with the best genes for recovery, strength, athleticism, hand eye coordination, speed, etc, were all selected for and became winners. And all these physical benefit are likely to confer fitness to general health, ageing, and longevity. My personal hypothesis at least

And I strongly agree comparing Arnold to Lou is misguided... One of the biggest movie stars of all time (I argue the biggest), plus a lengthy career in politics, would have incurred an huge debt of stress that Lou likely never experienced. Low level chronic stress really is incredibly ageing...

Fit people are more attractive, but that doesn't mean they live any longer than the rest of us. There are very few centenarians who have been any kind of athlete at all. While they are "active" as a group, they are not athletes. Secondly, professional athletes are poster children for unhealthy lifestyles due to the poor dietary habits they integrate into their lives. They often compensate for their diets with lots of training. When the training ends, it's very difficult for them to adjust to a healthier lifestyle. There are an enormous number of sad tales of professional athletes who die sick and penny-less in their 50's, 60's and 70's. It's fairly rare to see an athlete make it to 90 years old. If you want to see a case in point, pull up a recent picture of Carl Lewis. He has not aged well IMHO. Seen a photo of Tanya Harding recently?

edit:
http://www.google.co...9QEwAg&dur=6261

I predict an early demise for Michael Phelps. See this:

http://blog.chron.co...-weight-battle/

It would be a nice fantasy if all the beautiful people could also live long, but sadly it's not so.

Edited by scottknl, 09 July 2012 - 08:20 PM.

[scottknl]

I think the Okinawans, who eat a CR/paleo diet, are the best example of CR working.

Maybe it is not the CR aspect of their diet. Maybe it is some other property of their diet, their lifestyle, or genetics.

Studies have been done on Okinawan people that move to the US. They wind up with the same health profile as everyone else who lives in the US.

[nowayout]

I think the Okinawans, who eat a CR/paleo diet, are the best example of CR working.

Maybe it is not the CR aspect of their diet. Maybe it is some other property of their diet, their lifestyle, or genetics.

Studies have been done on Okinawan people that move to the US. They wind up with the same health profile as everyone else who lives in the US.

I don't doubt it, but that still doesn't prove that the reason they lived long in Okinawa was CR, and not some other properties of their diet or lifestyle.

See for example the recent study on long-lived Sardinians - it turned out that the distinguishing factor in their lifestyle that correlated with lifespan was not as simple as diet - it was the fact that they specifically walked challenging steep inclines on a daily basis (walking on level terrain was not enough - it had to be steep).

Edited by viveutvivas, 09 July 2012 - 11:57 PM.

[e Volution]

Fit people are more attractive, but that doesn't mean they live any longer than the rest of us. There are very few centenarians who have been any kind of athlete at all. While they are "active" as a group, they are not athletes. Secondly, professional athletes are poster children for unhealthy lifestyles due to the poor dietary habits they integrate into their lives. They often compensate for their diets with lots of training. When the training ends, it's very difficult for them to adjust to a healthier lifestyle. There are an enormous number of sad tales of professional athletes who die sick and penny-less in their 50's, 60's and 70's. It's fairly rare to see an athlete make it to 90 years old. If you want to see a case in point, pull up a recent picture of Carl Lewis. He has not aged well IMHO. Seen a photo of Tanya Harding recently?

You have made a number of incorrect logical leaps about what I was saying. Firstly, fit people certainly do live longer than "the rest of us" which I take to mean the average people, as exercise has repeatedly been shown to decrease mortality.

Now just because athletes appear (to me) to be more attractive, does in no way imply all athletes should live longer. I was implying it may hint they have superior genetics and/or upbringing, which I feel pretty confident in and feel stems from a selection bias. I speculate this would also confer benefits to ageing and longevity, however it is quite obvious that the most genetically gifted attractive athlete in the world will not live all that long if they happen to have developed a methamphetamine habit. I am certainly of the opinion that most, if not all, top level athletes are trading health and longevity for performance. Regarding centenarians, athletes are a small % of that sample of attractive or genetically gifted people, so you would not expect centenarians to be overrepresented as athletes. Making the jump from Lou is a professional athlete, and so likely has good genetics, to therefor centenarians should be athletes is rather silly.

Lou has been on a high calorie diet his entire life, yet looks good for his age. My point is that he is professional bodybuilder (note I never said athlete), which means that the fact we even know his name meant he went through a rigorous physical and aesthetic selection process of tournaments, which likely confers good genetics and/or upbringing status which is a plausible reason for why he now looks so good, rather than a dismissal of CR.

[nowayout]

I can think of many elite athletes who are not particularly aesthetically gifted, to put it gently.

[scottknl]

http://strengthplane...ss-athletes.htm

I'm not sure what his sources are, but he says:

9. What is the life expectancy of world class athletes?
Not so good. The average elite athlete will die by the age of 67. That is considerably lower then the 76 year life expectancy of the average American. Do you want to hear something that is really scary? According to the NFL Players Association, the average life expectancy of an NFL player is 58 years of age.

I would class Lou as a world class athlete.

[zorba990]

http://strengthplane...ss-athletes.htm

I'm not sure what his sources are, but he says:

9. What is the life expectancy of world class athletes?
Not so good. The average elite athlete will die by the age of 67. That is considerably lower then the 76 year life expectancy of the average American. Do you want to hear something that is really scary? According to the NFL Players Association, the average life expectancy of an NFL player is 58 years of age.

I would class Lou as a world class athlete.

Not sure blaming athletics is correct though.

Perhaps stats on contact sports along with extreme sports such as marathoning / triathletics should be separated from athletes more mindful of overtraining or sensible practices. Will I care when I'm 80 if I could squat 500 when I was 40? Or will I be happy I can still do reps with 250 in perfect form because I concentrated on back health, avoided overtraining, took breaks to recover from nagging aches and pains regardless of short term strength loss. The cavalier attitude towards injuries of most people in groups I have run with is jaw dropping. Pre-medicating every run with catabolic anti-inflammatory medicines? One guy said "It's like pez for adults". WTF? OK, strayed a bit off topic...

[FadeIntoBig]

Not sure blaming athletics is correct though.

Perhaps stats on contact sports along with extreme sports such as marathoning / triathletics should be separated from athletes more mindful of overtraining or sensible practices. Will I care when I'm 80 if I could squat 500 when I was 40? Or will I be happy I can still do reps with 250 in perfect form because I concentrated on back health, avoided overtraining, took breaks to recover from nagging aches and pains regardless of short term strength loss. The cavalier attitude towards injuries of most people in groups I have run with is jaw dropping. Pre-medicating every run with catabolic anti-inflammatory medicines? One guy said "It's like pez for adults". WTF? OK, strayed a bit off topic...

I don't think any of this is off-topic at all.

Art De Vaney's book, "The New Evolution Diet", goes into the importance of "High Intensity" exercise (good) vs. "Chronic Cardio" (bad) for both extending life span and quality of life, and also is of the opinion that most or all of the positive effects of CR can be had by intermittent fasting (optional) and a good diet (mandatory), all of which simply minimize glucose/insulin response. Art also makes it clear that it's _safe_ HIT exercise that counts, and to _not_ be concerned with "maxing out".

In fact, I've seen very positive changes in my own life based on these principles. IIRC, Lou was a proponent of "go heavy or go home" (heavy = high intensity) lifting, with very little cardio and instead relying on diet to control most of the fat side of the body composition equation. Recent research is pointing at high-intensity exercise being superior for fat loss as well as being healthier in general.

Art also goes into the importance of containing inflammation, especially the chronic variety. For those of you who don't know, Art is 72-73 y/o, maintains about 8% bodyfat, can still run a sub-5 second 40 yd dash and can out-lift most of the young men at his gym. Not to mention he still has off the chart testosterone levels for a man of any age.

If I would disagree with Art on anything, it would be that he has protein too high and (healthy) fats too low for the macro ratios of his recommended diet, but other than that I have personally found his recommendations to be spot-on and they have made a big difference in the quality of my life. As to extending my life to any great degree, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Both Art's book and his website have a fair amount of material on the detrimental effects of "chronic cardio" type exercise as well, with most of it being supported by studies.

[TheFountain]

I can think of many elite athletes who are not particularly aesthetically gifted, to put it gently.

Amen. Where do people come up with this stuff?