The subtitle:

> A naturally occurring compound involved in digestion lengthens lifespan in flies and makes old mice more youthful.

3 meals a day + snacks don't make sense for the body but good for business.
”Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”

— Advertising slogan, Kellogg’s 1917

That slogan is an oversimplification but if I eat a bowl of steel cut at 7am I won't snack or be hungry until 2pm or later. Whether or not I eat this will have a strong impact on my day. Sounds important IMO
I won't snack or am hungry before 17:00, usually not before 20:00 except I do sports or something, then I may need a snack around 14:00.

If I do eat early my body takes hours to get to full energy again. It literally makes me tired.

My girlfriend doesn't work that way. And I have no idea why this works so well for me.

Depends on the person. If I eat breakfast I feel like crap for 2-3 hours afterwards. I have friends who can't function for the day before eating first.

It's certainly not the most important meal of the day in general. Especially as a societal meme that came directly from an advertising campaign for a cereal manufacturer.

Steel Cut is non-whole oat cut in small bits for those wondering. I had to google, didn’t know if you were joking.
If I don’t eat breakfast I won’t snack or be hungry until 5pm so the slogan isn’t a oversimplification, it’s marketing
Waistline and GDP graphs growing together
Speaking of ageing, what happened with the research around this gene:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5403515/

You can see everything that has cited that so far here:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?linkname=pubmed_pubmed_cite...

154 so far. I'm not sure how to dig into that and answer the question though.

A lot of extensive research was done by Dr. Valter Longo and his department on similar topics and has made its way into an easily digestible book called The Longevity Diet. It changed my perspective big time with food.

Highly recommend reading this book for folks that are interested in Longevity.

Dr. Longo has also done a few podcasts with Dr. Rhonda Patrick (who might be more known to the audience here) you can checkout

Thanks! I hadn't heard of The Longevity Diet. Here's a review: https://www.verywellhealth.com/the-longevity-diet-plan-overv...

A summary of the diet from the review:

The longevity diet resembles a modified vegan diet in which certain seafood and small amounts of meat and dairy are allowed. It is as much a lifestyle as an eating plan and can be followed for an indefinite amount of time. The guidelines include following a five-day fasting-mimicking diet periodically throughout the year.

> The guidelines include following a five-day fasting-mimicking diet periodically throughout the year.

Including real fasting in a diet beats any of those fad diets with fake fasting gimmicks.

The Fasting Mimicking concept is there because this method was exclusively tested on Cancer patients who are also going through Chemo therapy. Having nutrients for these patients is important [1]

Is pure Water Fasting superior? Yes. I have done 1 week water fasts, back to back for 4 weeks and lost ~30 lbs.

However, I think fasting mimicking may help adherence for some people.

1: https://www.aacr.org/patients-caregivers/progress-against-ca...

Any idea how much muscle vs fat you lost on your fasts?
I did a DEXA scan at the end only so I don’t know the before accurately. I have some measurements from my Scale on muscle mass which shows a drop of about 2 kgs. Overall I lost about 30-35 lbs of weight. The measurements from the scale should be taken with a grain of salt though because they are based on impedance and formulas that are related to BMI
What is "fasting-mimicking" and what are "fake fasting gimmicks"?
Fast-mimicking are diets where you eat but gets the same results as if fasting. Fake fasting gimmicks is the real name for this "diets" because you can't fake fasting with food.
When we're talking about longevity, I often think about this old comic. It showed two very old women, crumpled in seats in a nursing home, and one turns to the other saying, "Just think, if hadn't quit smoking and drinking, we might have missed this!"

Facetious of course, but the underlying point has merit. Just what part of your life are you extending? Are you extending the healthy, active period, or just dragging out that bit at the end when someone else has to wipe your bottom and feed you apple sauce? Especially with the current topic, it seems very likely to be the latter, and I'd rather eat the other half of my sandwich, and die a few years earlier.

  • Cpoll
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> Are you extending the healthy, active period, or just dragging out that bit at the end when someone else has to wipe your bottom and feed you apple sauce?

It's always both. Mortality isn't an independent counter, it's linked to a bunch of predictors that are also predictors of health and autonomy.

In other words, if you "eat the other half", you won't just die younger, you'll also start eating applesauce sooner.

I read on HN a comment to the effect that to feel better in your 60s means you must do somethings in your 50s. The things you need to do in your 50s also make you feel better in your 50s. And to be able to do these things in your 50s requires you to do somethings in your 40s - which also make you feel better in your 40s.

Feel better meant being more active and more social. Obviously my recollection lost all the "literary" qualities that comment had - but I like its message.

> Just what part of your life are you extending? Are you extending the healthy, active period,

That is the goal of every single person interested in longevity.

I have heard the term "extending healthspan" and to me that's a much better explanation of what people are trying to do.

  • leobg
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Is that the longevity doctor’s real name? Dr. Longo? I think that’s hilarious.
  • Qem
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Now two questions popped in my head:

1 - Some non-statin antichilesterol drugs work by preventing reabsorption of bile acids, causing them to pass through the bowels. Can this have the positive side-effect of making lithocholic acid precursors more available to the gut flora downstream? See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile_acid_sequestrant

2 - Does this affect those who underwent surgery to remove the gallbladder? Say, making caloric restriction more or less effective for this population.

The title implies this works for humans but the article says "There is no evidence yet that taking lithocholic acid would have the same effect in humans."
  • shrx
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The molecule, called lithocholic acid, is made by bacteria in the gut and aids the digestion of fats.
  • pama
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It is made by a relatively trivial change to CDCA (chenodeoxycholic acid), which in turn is made in the liver by cholesterol in a number of steps. I love the simplicity of stepwise modifications of complex molecules inside the body with the help of gut bacteria. True symbiosis.
Slowing aging is over rated. Ask a farmer or a gardener. Just when you think you have worked out how to keep things alive and looking healthy, the universe will throw things at you (from a very long ever growing list) that can change the story overnight.
  • Cpoll
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Farmers and gardeners concern themselves with soil depletion and genetic diversity, so I'm not sure your point makes any sense.
What would a farmer or a gardener have to say about slow aging?
how to keep something (a plant) alive and how unpredictable it can be
nah I think we can solve it
in flies and mice
“Now, a team has found a molecule that could provide caloric restriction in a pill”… instead of just restricting calories
We need to have our cake and eat it too