mattbell: (Default)
mattbell ([personal profile] mattbell) wrote2008-07-07 07:50 pm
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Caloric restriction

I'm on day 2 of food poisoning.  Food poisoning has dramatically reduced my hunger level, so I don't feel a strong desire to eat even though I've eaten very little over the last few days.


There's a thing called "caloric restriction" that involves cutting your calorie intake 20-40% in order to live longer.  It apparently works very well on mice, dramatically lengthening their lifetimes.  So of course people wanting to live longer try it.  Whether it works on people or not is still up in the air. 

No one asked the mice how they felt about the diet though.  Life is about quality, not just quantity.

Ordinarily I'd never try caloric restriction, even for a few days, because the sensation of being perpetually hungry is too distracting to me. 

However, since the food poisoning is suppressing my desire to eat, I can directly experience what it's like to live under calorie restriction.  Conclusion?  It's not so good. 

With so few calories coming in, my body seems to be reducing its energy expenditures.  The brain uses a lot of energy.  As a result, my body might not be willing to "spend" as much energy running my brain.  This might explain why I feel like my thoughts have been slow and sloppy.

It's not the way I'd want to live my life, even a dramatically extended one.

I also had the thought today that this is what my average day will be like when I'm 80.  I'm hoping for some big breakthroughs in medicine in the next few decades.

[identity profile] easwaran.livejournal.com 2008-07-11 09:29 am (UTC)(link)
Are you sure it's the calorie restriction causing you to feel that way and not the food poisoning?

[identity profile] nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com 2008-07-16 07:05 am (UTC)(link)
I don't know for sure. There was mild fever associated with the food poisoning, but it went away after the first day, while the limited-brain-power thing didn't kick in until the second. It seemed to fit the theory of my brain starting to use less energy due to a lack of food since it didn't start right away.