X-Message-Number: 24007
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 09:29:26 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #23999 - #24004

FOR Steve Harris:

A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION: you say in your news about Roy Walford
that he was an advocate of calorie restriction. How much did he
actually use calorie restriction himself? Clearly 79+ years isn't
out of line for the lifespan of a normal person. And if Walford
never practised calorie restriction for very long, there would
be no problem.

However I have raised the question of whether or not treatments 
which work in animals will work just as well in human beings. Don't
take me wrongly here: I have actually been taking several drugs
which increased the lifespans of mice and rats for years now,
basically because we presently have no better information to
go on. Not to take such drugs or even try calorie restriction 
essentially constitutes a choice not to live longer than normal.
Someday, probably because a minority will be taking an effective
antiaging treatment FOR HUMANS, we'll have enough data to make a 
choice of a treatment that we know will work, but not yet. And just
for that reason, almost everyone alive today will probably not live
long enough for any treatment to be PROVEN to work on human beings.

So here we have a human being, not a mouse or even a monkey, who
perhaps practiced calorie restriction for a reasonable time (? did
he?). His fate raises questions and gives us some vague information
(Yes, I know that even calorie restricted rats don't ALL live to
the maximum lifespan, or even longer than normal rats: so Walford
doesn't PROVE anything even if he did use calorie restriction.
But it does raise questions).

                Best wishes and long long life,

                      Thomas Donaldson

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