In last week’s post, I discussed the CRAN diet (Calorie Restriction with Adequate Nutrition). It’s a diet that is intended to prolong healthy life by drastically reducing calorie intake. Anyone who follows the diet will lose excess weight as a side benefit, but that is not the purpose of the diet.

There is not much experimental data on the effectiveness of the CRAN diet. If people who do not follow the diet have an average lifespan of seventy-seven years, it will take a very long time before it is clear whether people practicing CRAN have outlived controls who did not practice it. However, it seems reasonable to assume that CRANies will indeed live longer and healthier lives than people who consume the number of calories typical of the standard Western diet. Such life extension has been true for a wide variety of experimental animals, including worms, fruit flies, mice, rats, and monkeys.

Although the CRAN diet looks like it is probably effective at prolonging healthy life, it is a difficult regimen to stick to. Everything eaten must be weighed, and its calorie and nutrient content recorded. Calories may not exceed a set amount, that is far below what you would normally consume, such as for example, twenty percent below, or even thirty percent below. Nutrients must be toted up, to assure that you are getting enough of all the essential nutrients, as well as getting them in sufficient quantities. Some people handle this by eating the same breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, every day, day after day, once they have performed the needed calculations for nutrients and calories on those foods. To add something new is a hassle, but if you don’t add new foods now and then, mealtime can get pretty boring. For these and other reasons, such as persistent hunger, it is very difficult to stick to the CRAN diet for an extended period of time, let alone for the rest of your life.

One might reasonably ask, “Can I get the health and life extension benefits of the CRAN diet without starving myself, and without having to count every calorie that I consume? Perhaps you can.

One option is to follow the diet that Valter Longo, Ph.D. calls The Longevity Diet in his book of that name. It is an easier diet to follow, long term, because it does not ask you to cut down on calories. That’s a big advantage right there. No more obsessing over how close you are to your daily calorie limit when your significant other invites you out to dinner. It’s a lot easier to hold to the diet on a long-term basis.

Hmm. If I am not supposed to count calories, what does the Longevity Diet recommend that I do? Here are the main points:

• Follow a pescatarian diet, which is a vegetarian diet that also includes fish as a source of protein, ideally two or three times per week. The fish should not be types that have high levels of mercury, such as tuna.
• Although some fish is included In the diet, the overall level of protein should be low. The amount of protein should depend on your body weight and age. Overweight people and those over 65 need a little more protein than younger people of normal weight.
• Minimize consumption of saturated, hydrogenated, and trans fats.
• Minimize consumption of sugar and foods that can be readily converted into sugar in your digestive tract, such as fruits, fruit juices, white rice, and white bread.
• Eat foods high in nutrients and take a multivitamin supplement as extra insurance.
• You are a product of a long line of ancestors. Your digestive system has adapted to the foods that they traditionally ate. Avoid the things they didn’t eat. For example, if your heritage is Asian, your ancestors never engaged in dairy farming, and you are likely to be intolerant of cow’s milk. You are probably better off drinking tea instead.
• Eat two meals a day, plus one snack. There is no law that says you must eat three meals a day. Your body will probably do just fine on two meals and a snack.
• Observe time-restricted eating. This is one kind of intermittent fasting. If you do all your eating within a twelve hour stretch of a twenty-four-hour day, your body has the chance to enter a healing mode of operation during the period you are not eating. At any rate, you should not eat anything within the four-hour span before going to bed. It’s even easier to abide by this rule if you restrict your eating to an eight hour stretch rather than twelve, and the benefits of time-restricted eating are increased.

So far there are no scientific studies that show that Longo’s longevity diet extends human lifespan, and it will be a long time before such a study is concluded. However, adhering to this diet is not much of a burden, and if there is a chance that it will work at all to extend healthy life, it seems that choosing to follow it has little downside, and potentially significant upside.

Bio:

Allen G. Taylor is a 30-year veteran of the computer industry and the author of over 30 books, including Develop Microsoft HoloLens Apps Now, Get Fit with Apple Watch, Cruise for Free, SQL For Dummies, 8th Edition, Crystal Reports 2008 For Dummies, Database Development For Dummies, Access Power Programming with VBA, and SQL All-In-One For Dummies, Second Edition. He lectures internationally on astronomy, databases, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He also teaches database development and Crystal Reports through a leading online education provider. For the latest news on Allen’s activities, check out his blog at www.allengtaylor.com or contact him at allen.taylor@ieee.org.