Low-Calorie Diets Don’t Help Lifespan, National Institute on Aging Study

Monkeys fed a severely low-calorie diet didn’t live longer than their normal-diet peers, a 23-year study showed, contradicting research that suggests living thin on greatly curtailed food intake extends lifespans. The study by researchers from the National Institute on Aging sought to address whether diet restrictions had health benefits in rhesus monkeys, long-lived primates like people, thus rendering clues about human aging. Though the thin monkeys seemed healthier by some measures, calorie restriction failed to alter either cause of death or survival, the research showed.