NYT Article

CR is back in the news. Since I am a volunteer for interviews, I am wondering if a round of interviews is coming up. Last week CR was on the front page of the Wall Street Journal - though mostly oriented towards CR mimetics - drugs that would do what CR does. Yesterday, this article was in the New York Times. The NYT article was a pretty good one - covering all the angles. I thought the naysayer sounded particularly dumb, didn't you? He said:

Besides, he added, there is virtually no chance Americans will adopt such a
severe menu plan in great numbers.
“Have you ever tried to go without food
for a day?” Dr. Phelan asked. “I did it once, because I was curious about what
the mice in my lab experienced, and I couldn’t even function at the end of the
day.”

Wow - he tried not eating for a whole day and didn't feel well! Just think of that! Proves CR can't be done, doesn't it!

I read a lot of evolutionary biology. He is one of the "backward" ones - who think the environment limits organisms rather than shaping them. Too simplistic, I think. CR is a cellular level survival strategy. It appears to be part of the works for every living cell. None seem to have discarded it. Even if it really provides less benefit to long-lived humans, it may not be possible to get rid of it. It may also provide a slight advantage any way - enough to keep it in our toolkit. The idea that we would have evolved it out of our genes just because it wouldn't help us get though a few famine years seems quite simplistic to me.

I like the monkey pictures and story. Makes you want to be the CR monkey and not the ad lib one doesn't it? You want to be Rudy, not Matthias. Walford's video with mice is very similar. You want to be the CR mouse that is so wiggly and shiny - not the slow, dull, scruffty one. It doesn't even matter if Rudy lives a lot longer than Matthias - you still want to be Rudy.

I did not like Linksayer's meals as an example. They are nice enough, but reinforce the stereotype that CR food is weird food. The text made it sound like he does not eat the same thing at all as the pictured food - he seems to eat a pretty normal regimen. So why show fermented soy for breakfast? My Fiber One and vegetable juice would have been less weird. Some yogurt and an orange would have been even better. I would like to have seen some fish in there for one meal. Maybe chicken at the other.