Small Good News: Skinny Monkeys Might Want a Second Helping

Those underfed, longer-lived skinny monkeys are the hit medical story of the moment because they eat less and live longer, and what works for them might work for us, which is all we really care about.

Calorie-restriction diets have been around for a long time. Periodically, someone with concave cheekbones and cadaverous eye sockets who is not a twenty-year-old celebrity with an eating disorder steps forward to endorse the notion that less is more when it comes to food and mortality, and scientists have been working the idea with lower life forms, rats and worms and the like, since the 1930s. But now we have primates, whom some of us consider to be distant cousins, and experts in white coats, and formal data, to make the case for never again ordering a latte or, heaven forfend, using a piece of toast to mop up the remnants of that scrambled egg.

Makes me hungry just to think about it.

Anyhow, the really cool thing about the new 20-year-study is that some broadcasting wag asked the quality-of-life question: Are those old skinny monkeys happy? Or would they gladly trade in their extra months or years for the chance to sit down to a meal that wasn't designed with a calorie calculator and a measuring cup?

A disclaimer before we go any further: I avoid fast food, I eschew high-fructose corn syrup, I want to weep when I see children so heavy and sedentary that they can barely move, and the diabetes epidemic is on my short list of public health nightmares. I do not endorse emotional eating, but to live the rest of my life without a single bite of summer rhubarb and strawberry pie? An early adopter of restricted calories once described to me his Thanksgiving dinner of weighed and measured skinless poached turkey breast and steamed vegetables - which convinced me only that excess restraint is as marginal a behavior as binge eating.

The point here is that someone thought to challenge the results of a medical study, even in jest, a good thing, in this era of pharmaceutical companies as big as small countries and a boomer population that's finding out just how invincible we aren't.

So let's look at the monkeys some more, just to get our analytical juices flowing. First off, it's nowhere near a sure thing. About 37 percent of the regular eaters died of age-related ailments, as opposed to only 13 percent of the restricted eaters. But what about that unlucky 13 percent, the ones who moved on to that big jungle in the sky without ever sneaking a second banana for dessert. All that self-denial and no reward. How cheated did they feel?

And how come 13 percent of the skinnies failed to profit from the regimen? Everyone has an enviable friend who eats like the proverbial horse and never seems to gain an ounce, and a food-challenged friend who gains weight walking past a bakery. We don't know what role metabolism plays, or genetics. Until we have a better understanding of the other variables, it might be a bit much to ask us to forego foods we love, forever.

Remember, there were endless studies in the early days of hormone replacement therapy that credited it with everything from smoother skin to stronger bones to sharper minds, and we all know how that one turned out.

Maybe the healthiest thing we can do is raise an eyebrow and demand more answers before we go off half-cocked and two-thirds fed. Moderation in all things is a harder regimen to maintain than a more absolutist diet, but it feeds us in ways that caloric restriction or its antonym, face-stuffing, never can: It allows us to experience the real pleasures of the table, which have as much to do with sitting down with family and friends as with the food we share. Until those skinny monkeys convince me that they're happy as can be, I'm taking the latest news with a grain - not more than a grain, because too much can lead to blood pressure problems - of salt.

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Comments

[derekw007]

Here's a hint: Excercise for 90 minutes a day and you can eat whatever you want. I went from 280 to 170 and I now am running 90 minutes a day. I had McDonalds today for lunch AND had pork tenderloin, fried potatos (in light olive oil) and cucumbers in sour cream for dinner..TW­O HELPINGS. Later I'll have chips and salsa for a snack. And tomorrow I will get up and run again. For years I counted calories, went on Atkins, tried all kinds of crazy diets.

Who woulda thought all I had to do with move my ass a bit.

[tempestinateacup]

Before we worry overly much about extending our lifetimes through starvation, I'd like to see us focus our collective energies on encouraging people to eat in healthy moderation. Bring on the butter, in moderation. Glass of red wine? Sure, but keep it to one. Cream sauce? OK, but only on special occasions. Snacks for kids? Fruit, nuts, DECENT food, rather than chips and soda. I know, I know, moderation = boring. But by god it works. And one more thing: when families started eating out all the time because both parents work, or because a single parent works, our eating habits really declined. How do we improve on that situation?

[montemalone]

I'll continue to eat carefully. I regularly put food back on the shlef at the store because the ingredient label is too long.
I will also continue to eat chocolate (cake, brownies, ice cream, bars), pop tarts, enchiladas, cheese, red wine, bbq, pasta (not whole wheat), and all the other tasty, and healthful, things I enjoy, in moderation.

[richie42]

Who wants to be 90 anyways... I don't.

[SolarPowerGuy]

I do! Two of my great-grandparents made it that far, and they seemed to enjoy themselves for most of it.

My personal enjoyment aside, I want to see as much as I can of the future of the human race. I want to see us covert to a truly sustainable, Green economy. I want to live to see cures for cancer and chronic diseases. I want to be around for the first human landing on Mars, and I want to be around when we take our first photographs of an Earth-like planet orbiting another star.

None of these things are likely to happen for another 50 years, and I'm 40 now...

[SharonWantsToTalk]

Eat like our ancestors ate. Whole foods. Its just that simple. Don't eat out of a package or from a window. Studies come out so often you have no idea who is funding them or how well designed they are. I have 2 children 7 years apart. And in that 7 years, the medical science flipped twice on whether to place your baby on its stomach to sleep or on its back. We as a nation absolutly need to be retrained how to eat to our benefit. But that does not include scrawniness as an end result.

[AlexFTW]

Not sure Whole Foods was around when our ancestors were ;-p

[Bademus]

To compare these studies with hormone replacement therapy studies is meaningless. Those HRT studies were done for the purpose of approving patented formulas to be sold by pharmaceutical companies. There was tons of money riding on the outcome of those early studies. Dietary restriction studies benefit no commercial interest.

And you can restrict calories and still enjoy the occasional big fat dinner or slice of pie.

[beauley]

In the past we were so restricted of germs, now we are restricted of food to our perfect engine. When you put sugar in your car's gasoline it dies.

[toocoldout]

This is very important research

[faicole]

My best friend's mom has eaten this way for all of my 50 plus years. She's 87. Takes no medication - not for hypertension or cholesterol or any other ailments. The amazing thing is she smokes and occasionally enjoys some scotch and tonic! After three pm. she's pretty much eaten all she intends to. Maybe some fruit or something light later in the evening. No processed foods, rarely fast food. She's thin but healthy. My friend and I...health­y for the most part but definitely not thin. We eat a lot of what we should (veggies, fruit) and some of what we like but have adopted the eating habits that come from having high pressure jobs. However, my cynicism says we're all gonna end up the same - dead. I can't afford to take a trip around the world and do some other things I'd like but occasionally, I can enjoy a good meal with some good friends! What would life be like otherwise?

[MrsClauz]

I have 3 people in my life with eating disorders. One woman brags that she's never been in a Baskin Robbins. Eating out with them is impossible, one eats nothing but a green salad, side salad sized, no dressing, another sends everything back, and acts victimized by the lack of fat free vegan fare.

They aren't happy.

If having bbq with friends and family, garlic fries at a baseball game, or laughing with chums over a beer and some peanuts is going to shave a bit off my life I'm willing.

One of the greatest things I have heard lately is that a common chinese greeting translates to "have you eaten?" Isn't that wonderful?

[AlexFTW]

So, when's your next BBQ? I'll bring some beer.

[Tulka2]

Desire is endless: First Noble Truth. ;)

[MoreLiberalWithAge]

And Karen, you have that strawberry rhubarb pie. With a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It's OK.

[MoreLiberalWithAge]

In a clinical trial, an 87% success rate would be pretty darn good, so the fact that 13% of the monkeys did not live longer doesn't mean caloric restriction doesn't work. The science is pretty sound on this, that it does, for most individuals.

But the point about the 13% who didn't see a benefit is that not everything works for everyone all the time. Clinical statistics are all about your risks, but they don't mean that a particular strategy will or won't work for any given individual. This is why you have 90-year-old obese smokers and super-fit runners who die of heart attacks at age 37.

I agree that extreme caloric restriction is as much an eating disorder as binging, and the approach we should all take is one of moderation. Americans eat too much of everything--too much sugar, too much meat, too much fat, too much breadstuffs. But there's nothing wrong with eating any of those foods, if we all just cut back on the quantities. It would go a long way toward solving problems highlighted in Food Inc if we went back to having meat just once or twice a week, like our great-grandparents did. Cooking from scratch as much as possible would help too. That said, there's nothing wrong with a frozen pizza or jarred spaghetti sauce when you're in a time crunch to get dinner on the table.

[Bademus]

There are 90 year old obese smokers?

[vim876]

Probably not a ton of old smokers, but in my family, the fat ones tend to last longer than the thin ones. My thin grandmother died in her mid-70s, my fat grandmother died at 88. There's a pretty consistent pattern with great-aunts and uncles too.

[RJII]

either people need to start starving thier children after birth or this is a moot point. I'd rather be the fat happy monkey, eating my cake too.
We all need some moderation in life, but the extremes will k i l l ya one way or another. I say let live. Eat and be merry.

[AngelaQuattrano]

The obsession with excess dietary control is called orthorexia nervosa.

[arabianway]

Weight and age, weight and age the American obsessions.

The premise of the study is that everyone wants to live longer. A False premise. What's next? People chow measured by the scoop with all the necessary nutrients?

Primates in barren cages devoid of toys or any kind of diversion except when they are removed for blood draws or other "scientific" purposes?

In my opinion doctors, (and I use the term very loosely) your Karma will get you long before your diet does.