Caloric restrictions extend life of Monkeys .

A new research has shown that dieting monkeys survive longer than others without caloric restrictions. Caloric restriction (CR) extends survival in rhesus monkeys, as senior authors Rozalyn Anderson, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Rafael de Cabo, National Institute on Aging, Baltimore, report in the January Nature Communications. This result in a nonhuman primate suggests scientists will be able to apply what they have learned about caloric restriction in shorter-lived animal models such as yeast and mice to humans. In monkeys, what and how much they eat absolutely influence how they age and with genetic similarity to people, there’s every reason to believe that would also be true in humans. The analysis combined two experiments begun in the late 1980s that tested whether caloric restriction improved health and survival in monkeys. One came from the University of Wisconsin, where scientists studied 76 adult monkeys . The other, from NIA, included 121 monkeys aged 1 to 23 and both studies put half the monkeys on a CR diet. At the NIA, some animals started the diet when they were young, and some when they were older. In the end, both studies agreed that there was a health benefit to CR if not an improvement in longevity. Animals on a restricted diet developed age-related conditions—such as bone and muscle loss, cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease—at half the rate of control animals.