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Comment by koheripbal | Hacker News Reader

I believe the most impactful thing you can do is drastically reduce caloric intake - like by 50%.

Experiments have show large increases in lifespan, across mammals.

It's weird to me to say so but this intervention is one of the few things that, even if it were to demonstrably increase my lifespan from ~80 to ~120 years, I probably wouldn't do.

I don't know if that's because I enjoy food and bodily activity too much to value a longer life without them or because I'm addicted to food. I've wondered.

What wouldn't you be willing to give up for a much longer life?

there is a huge difference between enjoying food and being a slave to food.

the best example I have in this bucket is sugar. If you depend on sugar you're basically a drug addict (i know, i know, but just because it's socially acceptable does not make it okay. there is research out there that show sugar is as bad as cocaine when it comes to how addictive it is and on the health effect).

if you could pick just one intervention you could do quitting sugar is what you want (maybe if you're smoking, quitting smoking, but after that sugar is the nastiest thing you can put into your system)

Well we were talking specifically about reducing calories by something like 50%, which automatically cuts out sugar, grains, probably meat. But what really kills it for me is not being able to move, dance, play sports.

I understand how people can have fulfilling lives after losing the ability to do those things. Would I voluntarily give them up for a longer life? Probably not.

> which automatically cuts out sugar, grains, probably meat

Not necessarily. There's some evidence that when you eat might matter more than what you eat (given essential nutrition):

>Increasing daily fasting times, without a reduction of calories and regardless of the type of diet consumed, resulted in overall improvements in health and survival in male mice [1]

[1] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/fasting...

Depends which parts gets prolonged - if you are at 80 deteriorated +-same as somebody who dies at 80, and they just keep fixing the next thing that is going to kill ya, then yes, that's a pure physical misery and spiral down progressive dementia (almost all old folks suffer from some form of it).

Now if we would be 40-like in our 60s and so on, that's another story. But first thing that would probably change is retirement age.

yes, the longevity "movement" actually talks about this. nobody want to live to be 130 if it sucks. but if you have the same quality of life like a 40yo all of a sudden people are waaay more open to living longer (I have also observed a huge pushback against living longer from most people I've chatted about this - it's so ingrained in our way of thinking that saying you want to live to be 130 is heresy)

Is being 40 and not being able to play tennis or go on long walks because you're too calorie-deprived that different from being 80?

That isn't the outcome though. Those on these strict diets are not lethargic.

From my own experience doing extreme diets I highly disagree. As soon as your own bodyfat starts getting low, being on a ~1500 calorie diet as an adult male is extremely exhausting by itself. No chance of enjoying physical activity whatsoever.

Just try fasting. I'm on a fast right now (500kcal max for 3 days, day 2 ongoing), and I'm much more focused & energetic than I've been in weeks. If I haven't fasted in a long time, getting through the "low energy" phase can be rough. If it's been say, less than a couple of months, it's a breeze. From experience I can tell that fasting will bring me calm, easier sleep, and reduced tendency to overeat (except maybe the day after) that will visibly linger for at least a week or 2.

If you enjoy bodily activity and experiences, why not try fasting too :)

Except that worldwide, life expectancy has increased along with increases in caloric intake. Of course there can be other factors involved, but everywhere you had increases in caloric intake, you've had significant increases in life expectancy.

yes and no. if you look at how the numbers are collected and aggregated life expectancy was actually a bimodal distribution and the average was impacted by infant mortality. If you remove that you will see that the improvement in life expectancy is not as impressive. Also, it may be that the increase is not due to caloric intake as much as it is due to technological progress.

see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectanc...

reducing caloric intake may work, but it's also as important when you eat (ie fasting / intermittent fasting).

also, you can reduce caloric intake all you want, if you eat crap and don't sleep properly you're still going to have a bad time

By 50% TDEE, or by 50% of what? And for how long? If that's the most impactful thing, these factors should very much be included

> And for how long?

Permanently.

50% of TDEE permanently? Goodbye muscle tissue, hello injury, hello terrible moods. Life will not feel like it's worth living. (You must be joking?)

If not joking: Have you tried this? I lost 36% of my bodyweight by eating under TDEE. It requires huge amounts of effort to even hit 25% under TDEE consistently. A lot of that effort involves annoying your friends and family by not eating the way they do. We're social animals. It's hard. Plus when you get to a certain weight you will realize you have to regain muscle tissue, and the question of a bulk/cut cycle will come to mind. Goodbye 50% under TDEE.

Can you cite this research across mammals? As far as I am aware it is only in lab rats.

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