Calorie-restriction and longevity. End of a dream, at least for primates?

Abstract

One of the most intensely pursued ambition of physicians engaged in aging research was rejuvenation and increasing longevity. The most remarkable examples, the one initiated by Brown-Séquard, professor at the Collège de France in Paris will be cited because performed by a famous physician, who initiated endocrinology, among others. Then will be cited the only reproducible experiment producing increased longevity in several animal species: calorie restriction (CR). This method, tested on yeast resulted in the discovery of sirtuins, genes involved in the regulation of longevity, discussed in a previous article in this journal (Robert, 2012 [1]). For reasons detailed in this article, the author doubted from the beginning that CR will ever work for humans. The recent publication by the team of NIA of NIH on a 20-year follow-up of a CR experiment on primates appears to confirm this caveat. Moreover, other recent experiments of a group of scientists working on intrauterine health programming produced arguments indicating the potential harmful effects of CR in humans and its variants on offsprings. Remains however the possibility, widely exploited that the pharmacological stimulations of gene-expression, of the sirtuins and some other genes, appears to produce indirectly longevity by postponing age-associated diseases (Robert, 2012 [1]), in contradistinction to CR which is inefficient and apparently harmful in primates.