Home
On January 25, 2009, 60 Minutes aired a segment about red wine, resveratrol, and the Calorie Restriction Diet. I'm not much for wine, and the resveratrol "magic pill" won't be available for several years, but the Calorie Restriction Diet made such extraordinary claims that it really got my attention. It promises to reduce blood pressure to the level of a 10-year-old child, drop triglycerides to the 5% level, raise good cholesterol to the 85-90% level, and drop bad cholesterol dramatically. And, by the way, this diet is supposed to trigger the longevity gene and give us an extra 10 years of quality life.
I'm still in the early stages of research on this program, so I don't have all the answers, but The Calorie Restriction Society is a great place to start.
The basic idea is to get on a healthy diet first, then gradually reduce calories, being very careful to get all the necessary nutrients, and lose weight very slowly. For those of us who can't exercise, this seems like the perfect program, because exercise is not part of the formula.
Since much of this research was done on animals, I decided to check that angle, too. On this program your dog could live an extra 1.8 years.