Wednesday 11 May 2005

Pic of the day: Food! Food! Glorious food! (Actually that's Kozue-chan from the anime Mahoraba ~Heartful Days~ eating umeboshi, Japanese pickled "plums", which are supposed to be very healthy too.)

Longevity NOW!?

When it comes to longevity, scientists roundly agree: Eating less beats the snot out of exercising more. This is because while both of them protect against heart attacks, exercise does nothing against cancer. In theory, quite the opposite: Cancer depends on mutations of the DNA, and a major cause of such mutations seems to be "free radicals", a side product from the burning of food to deliver energy to the cells. Luckily the muscle cells are almost immune to cancer in most people, so unless you have a family history of sarcoma, you should be pretty safe. But it doesn't really help either.

Of course, regular exercise has other benefits. It strengthens the heart so you stand a better chance of surviving if you get a heart attack after all. It protects against age-related diabetes and reduces the negative effects if you already have that disease. It improves sexual function in men (as if we needed that), reduces repetitive strain injury and generally makes people feel better about themselves.

All things considered, regular exercise is vastly preferable to sitting on your fat ass eating chips all day. (Not that there is anything wrong with ass; it's the beer belly that kills you. For simplicity, think of fat leaking into the arteries from your fat belly; when they are full, you get an infarct. Of course this is not the whole truth; but it gives an idea.)

But when it comes to reducing the risk of cancer, there is just nothing that beats going hungry. The problem with this, of course, is that you are hungry. Hunger being a primary instinct, there is no way around it really. You can combat the gnawing feeling in your stomach by eating various low-calorie fillers, such as certain vegetables and diet fibers. But hunger is a force both powerful and subtle; you should not expect that you will ever feel fully satisfied in your life as long as you are starving. The good news is that you do get used to it, so the first months are the worst. Also one popular way of restricting calorie intake is to eat every other day, and drink only water every other day. You will automatically eat more on the food days, of course, but not twice as much, so calorie intake will be perhaps 75% of normal need.

You know one of my favorite statements is "All things have a price". In the case of longevity through calorie restriction, the price is (besides always being hungry) that the flame of life burns lower. You will always be weak, tired and cold. Forget sex ... actually, you will forget that automatically as the drive fades away. It is a slow and quiet life you opt for. But perhaps it will be worth it. Perhaps the future will be much better than the present. Perhaps in the future, science will find a way to live for a long time without the deprivations of today, so you can emerge from your hibernation to live a full and happy life. Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps we use up the fossil fuels and civilization collapses to the point where starvation is no longer voluntary. Perhaps you are run over by a truck and none of it matters. Place your bets.