AND NO, IT IS NOT BECAUSE YOU ARE SO HOT. -or because ‘Momma said ,’knock you out”
OK, OK, YOU -ARE- HOT, BUT NOT -THAT- HOT.
… now help me the eff up, alright?!!
Alright, aside from all the hotness; mine included, doing something for yourself -Starting Now, that few Americans seem to be able to, might just save you from the above exclamation, when you start growing old.
And fair argument if you say that if you went the other way, that you’d essentially be so huge or so Spherical, that falling-down would be a non-euclidean-geometrical-impossibility.
Regardless, two admittedly-recalcitrant scientists have found Definitive, Non-Crackpot-based “Evidence” that Restricting Calories is a FANTASTIC idea, not just for Longevity, but somehow Miraculously, to preserve BOTH your Muscles, AND your Nervous-System.
Think of how we look at aging; most of the time, it’s viewed as an external issue.
Until someone displays the symptoms of a sickness, it seems more about how they LOOK.
But as this study asserts, it’s not just your Looks, not just your illnesses, but your Muscles, your Nervous-System, and everywhere The Two Intersect; -all of those connections; in either an accelerating downward or upward -spiral feedback-loop.
It’s not ONLY a question of an Old Man becoming feeble-minded. -Your muscles themselves waste away, in-part because the Junctions where your nervous system connect to them, deteriorate, causing the signals that would have fired them, to FAIL.
And this was chocolate-peanut-butter-collision-oddly fortuitous, because one of the easiest places to study the Nervous System on the human body (esp. in-vivo), is a place called the Neuro-Muscular-Junction. It’s a place where the connections are big enough, they can be examined using regular, roaming-gnome-variety microsocopes.
And when the scientists studied this conjunction junction on a non-calorie reduced mouse that had Retired to a small charmingly-fuzzy Nursing Home, they found it in near-complete disarray; -even a quick glance, and they could tell that much like Sarah Jessica Parker’s boiled-horse-face, it just plain ‘Looked Old’.
They also found that the Muscles had just wasted away.
Now the normal hope for any type of Calorie-Restriction research is usually limited to weight, garden-variety-fitness, and maybe a little life-extension.
And as you would expect in this study, because the researchers A-B-tested the Golden Calf, Exercise vs. the Upstart-Contender, Calorie Restriction,
And: The findings showed that There is some moderate hope for Exercise in old-age.
Exercise Really Could Stop, and even Reverse the decline of the N-M-Junction, the muscles and the nervous system.
->Which is a particularly funky point, because up until now, almost ALL the emphasis in the murder-suicide-two-step of body-improvement has OVERWHELMINGLY been on EXERCISE -and it as the salvation of everything.
-Now, this is not something that any serious or professional athlete would believe.
-Go ahead and ask Lance Armstrong if Nutrition is less important than exercise.
But, in the general public consciousness: -EXERCISE==KING-.
**Now brace yourselves: BOOM!
–Amazingly enough, EXERCISE DID NOT SHOW AS MUCH POSITIVE EFFECT AS CALORIE-RESTRICTION.
fullpartial-goddang-STOP.
–Ok, this then leads us to the Bad News/Bad Question:
Q: “How much restriction is necessary for regular humans?” -or Where is the tipping-point?
Bad News: The study had the researchers restricting the calories of the mice by FORTY-PERCENT.
-Umm… Who knows what equations they were using to figure out how many calories to give to the mice, or if they based their intake on the standard American Overeating Nutrion Plan,
But a FORTY PERCENT Calorie Reduction is PATENTLY-INSANE!
-At that point, you would LITERALLY be doing nothing else than snorting lab-grade Cocaine engineered-powders.
I am all for measuring, counting, weighing, even calculating, etc. -But a 40% cut would be too much to bear even for me; -and I am Significantly more dedicated than the average bear.
So: hopefully in the future, there is a way for all of us to REASONABLY restrict our calories to achieve ~similar results and not turn into a “When you X, You Y”-format DirecTV commercial.
-Because if you check out the visual appearance of any of the barmy, scarecrowed, old coots on the weekend TV research shows doing nothing but freebasing ground Chick Peas, frog ganglia and wet gunpowder,
hard-core pronz I mean, calorie-restriction diets do not look like much fun.
-Or to put it in DirecTV terms: “When you start restricting your calories, you X and when you X you Y; and when you Y, you Z,
and then you BECOME THE UNABOMBER!
-DON’T. BECOME. THE. UNABOMBER!!!”
Photo Credits:
“Jack LaLanne and his dog”, copyright BeFit Enterprises
LL Cool J., publicity file photo, copyright Island Def Jam Records and LL Cool J.
“Downward Spiral”, by Karina Cabrera
Christian Bale in “The Machinist”, publicity photo, copyright Julio Fernandez, Fantastic Factory, Filmax/Casteleao Producciones
Ted Kaczynski mug shot stock file photo
“Stray Animals” Commercial, copyright DirecTV
Links:
• Source: PNAS-Attenuation of age-related changes in mouse neuromuscular synapses by caloric restriction and exercise (abstract) | PNAS-Attenuation of age-related changes in mouse neuromuscular synapses by caloric restriction and exercise (full)
• via: TechnologyReview-How to Keep Muscles Young: Eat Less Food
• More Coverage: HarvardMag-Sound Synapses, Fitness: Body and Mind | HarvardNeuroSci-Joshua Sanes | Harvard-Jeff Lichtman | MountSinai-Charles Mobbs
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