Science of Aging  

Richard Weindruch Finds That Adult Mice On Dietary Restriction Live 20% Longer And Have Lower Cancer Rates

Who:Richard Weindruch, Roy L. Walford
When:March 12, 1982
Methods: By feeding a control group a normal diet and another group a high nutrient calorie restricted diet and observing which lived longer
Institution: University of California at Los Angeles
Where: Los Angeles, California, U.S.A

Weindruch and Walford set out to prove that caloric restriction is effective when started in middle age, since other mice studies focused on caloric restriction from a younger age. Weindruch and Walford defined middle age to be 1 year for a mouse and examined two strains of lab mice on a "undernutrition without malnutrition diet".

The dietary restricted mice experienced a twenty percent increase in life-span over the control groups. The dietary restricted group also experienced a lower incidence of the following cancers: Hepatoma (Liver), Lymphoma (Immune), and Lung.


References

  1. Weindruch, R. Walford, R. Dietary Restriction in Mice Beginning at 1 Year of Age: Effect on Life-Span and Spontaneous Cancer Incidence. Science, Vol 215 (4538), 1415-1418 (1982)

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