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Ultra-low-calorie
diet high on promise
January 2005
By MARY JO LAYTON
The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)
KRT
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS PEDOTA/THE RECORD
Mark Schneider, of Haddonfield, New Jersey, believes
that extreme calorie restriction will help him live
a longer life. His lunch includes one apple, a banana
and a container of yogurt. |
HACKENSACK,
N.J. — Mark
Schneider believes he’s found what countless baby
boomers crave: the secret to living past 100.
It’s not running marathons or injections of anti-aging
hormones. Instead, Schneider says the key to longevity
is following a diet that’s so low in calories that
Super-Size America would consider it starvation.
The 52-year-old South Jersey man is convinced that extreme
calorie restriction, or CR as it’s known to hard-core
followers, will spare him the destiny of millions of
his aging brethren: paunch, heart disease or cancer,
a predictable demise at 75 or so.
“I’m doing everything possible to prolong
life. Baby boomers don’t ever want to die,”
the wafer-thin Schneider said as he leaped up from a
round of push-ups at a Haddonfield gym.
After two years on the diet, the 5-foot-10 former college
administrator weighs 135 pounds — 20 less than
he did in high school. He says he feels terrific, but
his doctor and his personal trainer say he’s too
thin. His cheeks are gaunt. When he dipped to 130 pounds,
his wife told him he looked like a concentration-camp
survivor and made him gain back a few.
The CR lifestyle — reducing normal calorie intake
30 percent below recommended levels — is not about
losing the saddlebags or Heineken gut. It’s not
another Atkins or South Beach. It is not, its followers
say, anorexia. It’s a quest for uber-health, where
every calorie, every nutrient, every pound is methodically
tracked in an attempt to gain a few decades. Give up
pizza. Live past 100.
Near-starvation diets have radically extended the lives
of mice and other lab creatures in research studies.
So why not humans? That’s the $20-million question,
the cost of a study sponsored by the National Institutes
of Health, the first randomized controlled trials in
humans.
“The general premise of CR studies is that calorie
restriction delays biological aging, and that is the
underlying reason for why disease incidence goes down,”
said Susan Roberts, a researcher at Tufts University
School of Medicine in Boston, one of the three sites
in the nation for the study. “This is what happens
in animals, at least.”
In a nation obsessed with turning back the clock, where
billions are spent on Botox, plastic surgery and anti-wrinkle
creams, the CR movement isn’t exactly a national
craze. Draconian diets are a tough sell in a population
that struggles to stay on Weight Watchers or to take
a brisk walk for 30 minutes a day.
“It’s pretty fringe, I gotta tell you,”
said Dr. Nathan Lebowitz, a cardiologist and director
of complementary medicine at Englewood Hospital and
Medical Center.
However, the principles of CR are worthy of further
scrutiny, especially when two-thirds of Americans are
overweight, said Lebowitz, who is also a professor at
Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons.
“From a genetic standpoint, we’ve evolved
to withstand famine,” he said. “In times of
plenty, we pack it on and pack it on as stored fat so
that we would survive times of scarcity. What we have
now, though, is a disaster of unparalleled proportions.”
In America, 64 percent of adults are overweight, and
the consequences of obesity are quickly catching up
to tobacco as the leading cause of preventable death.
The percentage of overweight children has doubled to
15 percent in the last 20 years.
First studied in the 1930s, calorie restriction has
been proven to double the life of mice, guppies and
spiders. It also has extended the lives of test monkeys.
The movement picked up momentum with the publication
in 2000 of “The 120-Year Diet,” a name coined
by UCLA researcher and gerontologist Roy Walford, who
said people could reach extreme longevity if they followed
the extreme diet.
Scientists aren’t exactly sure how CR works, but
it appears to effect certain biochemical changes. By
cutting calorie consumption to 20 or 30 percent below
normal USDA recommendations — below the levels
of most weight-loss diets — the body may reduce
levels of free radicals, those pesky atoms or molecules
that cause aging and disease. Some scientists believe
that mild starvation toughens the cells, turning them
into battle-scarred warriors better trained to deflect
illness.
Preliminary research has shown that CR followers are
reducing their risk of stroke, heart attack and type
II diabetes, common killers that rob millions of Americans
of the golden years.
For the average man, the diet calls for eating 1,500
to 1,700 calories a day. Federal guidelines suggest
men get between 2,000 and 2,800 calories a day.
For the typical woman, following the CR diet means slashing
of intake to 1,100 or 1,300 from the 1,600 to 2,200
the government recommends.
Some who follow the diet are known to eat 4 to 6 pounds
of fruit and vegetables a day. Foods have to offer a
big nutritional bang for a low number of calories: sardines,
blueberries, protein powders.
The mountains of fiber consumed, the aversion to processed,
fat-laden foods, along with a regimen of supplements:
It all seems to work miracles, said Luigi Fontana, one
of the lead investigators of a study at the Washington
University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
“We have data to show that life expectancy is increased
in people who are on the calorie-restricted diets,”
Fontana said.
The study found that those who followed the diet had
lower blood pressure, lower levels of cholesterol and
higher levels of “good” cholesterol.
“Some of these people have the blood pressure of
15-year-olds,” Fontana said.
Yogurt and sardines
Mark Schneider sits in his tidy kitchen eating slices
of a Gala apple, then a banana and a cup of light yogurt
— the lunch he eats most days. For variety, he
digs into sardines, loaded with heart-healthy Omega
3’s.
He says he eats 1,500 to 1,800 calories daily. He also
takes 13 pills each day, including aspirin, calcium
supplements, vitamin E and C and zinc. They’re
all washed down with a glass of OJ that, to save 80
calories, he’s diluted with water.
The supplements are why the CR lifestyle is also known
as CRON: Calorie Re striction and Optimal Nutrition.
“It’s not just about cutting calories by eating
half a hamburger or half an order of fries,” Fontana
said. All of the CR followers he studied had met 100
percent of the required daily allowances of various
vitamins and minerals — a claim few Americans can
make.
The Calorie Restriction Society, a California-based
group that supports CR research, has about 2,000 members
looking for a shot to live as long as Methuselah. Its
Web site, www.calorierestriction.org, is filled with
recipes such as “Pastafree Veggie Pastalike Dish,”
or Super Anti-Ox Juice, a blend of blueberries and pomegranate
juice. Sweet tooth calling? How about “Death by
Banana,” a low-fat imitation of the sinful chocolate
concoction.
Warren Taylor, the society’s spokesman, said he
embraced the CR lifestyle in the hope of gaining another
20 or 30 years. At 5-foot-6 and 115 pounds, he believes
his thinness doesn’t make him weak. Rather, it
is his armor to ward off aging and the cancers that
killed his parents in their 50s.
“I could easily lose another 10 or 15 pounds,”
he said. “I look like skin and bones, which is
exactly how I want to look.”
Unlike regular weight-loss diets, where calorie consumption
should rise after a goal is reached, CR dieters do not
stop following their plan. They say there is a point
where, even on a severe diet, a person will no longer
lose weight. The body adapts, becoming very energy-efficient
and requiring far fewer calories.
“The more I read about CR, the more it made sense
to me,” said Schneider, who has dropped from 157
to 135 in the past two years. “You’re putting
less strain on your bones, your organs, your entire
body if you weigh less.”
As he closes in on his mid-50s, though, his pursuit
of longevity is clearly in overdrive as he grimaces
when lifting weights or turns down two slices of pizza
— a lunch he used to love — for sardines.
Schneider offers an automobile analogy to explain his
decision to stick to the diet: “If you were told
you were only going to have one car your entire life,
you’d take great care of it, right? You’d
be damned sure you changed the oil.”
He can’t remember his last cold. In his pre-CR
days, he could count on one major bout a year.
Most dinners are fish or chicken and veggies. He will
have a steak when he’s in the mood, he said. He
enjoys a glass of wine at night with dinner, usually
red because it contains high amounts of Resveratrol,
which may have anti-aging properties.
Decadence is measured and meager; a teaspoon of peanut
butter is a splurge. There are no regrettable encounters
with Ben and Jerry’s. When Schneider eats pistachios,
he counts out 35 and stops.
“I’m not an extremist,” he insisted.
In the cold calculations of science, Schneider is indeed
much healthier than most Americans.
His body-mass index (BMI), a measurement to determine
if a person is at a healthy weight, indicates that Schneider’s
score is 19.4, within the normal range. A score of 25
to less than 30 is considered overweight; 30 and above
spells obesity. Overweight people are more likely to
develop cardiovascular disease, and the obese are five
times as likely to die of heart disease.
In fact, Schneider’s BMI makes him “one of
the healthiest in terms of longevity,” said Lebowitz.
Stalling the clock
When she lost nearly 30 pounds following the diet, April
Smith got glares from friends who worried that her 108-pound,
5-foot-2 body was too thin. The guy at the wine store
near her South Jersey apartment told her not to lose
another pound.
The egg-white omelets for breakfast, the occasional
800-calorie days, the end of pasta dinners are helping
her meet the rigors of a lifestyle she believes will
stall the clock.
Pure vanity made Smith convert to CR.
“I was starting to see tiny little lines around
my eyes,” she said. “I wasn’t able to
party all night and look dewy and fabulous the next
day. I didn’t want to be one of these women who
has to wear makeup.”
Smith, 30, a union organizer who helped nurses at Bayonne
Hospital form their first bargaining unit, says she
has more energy now. She awakens before dawn and logs
countless hours on the New Jersey Turnpike, driving
to various hospitals. She works many nights until 9
p.m., then meets friends in Philadelphia.
Still, she has heard countless criticisms of the diet.
Smith enjoys a variety of low-calorie meals, but some
in the world of CR eat the same meal every day, or insist
only on organics such as kale salad. Some won’t
ever dine out. A few have lost their libido.
“I do hear from people, ‘Don’t get anorexic
on us,”” Smith said.
Her rebuttal is well rehearsed. “What we’re
doing actually works,” she tells them. “It’s
common sense. It’s healthy and it’s time-tested.”
In some cases, though, extreme dieting can lead to eating
disorders such as anorexia. It can cause mood changes,
loss of energy, binge eating or ritualistic behavior
— counting bites or hoarding non-food items, said
Susan Kraus, a clinical dietitian at Hackensack University
Medical Center.
However, Kraus makes a distinction between most of the
folks on CR and anorexics. The CR dieters are trying
to optimize their health, she said, while anorexics
stop eating as a form of self-punishment.
But investigators at the American Federation for Aging
Research questioned the diet.
“A calorie-restricted diet will produce weight
loss, to the point that most adherents appear ill,”
they said. Federation researchers say CR followers are
generally cold and always hungry. Because they lose
so much body fat, they lose cushions that protect their
bones, so that sitting or walking can become painful.
And it’s simply not sustainable for most people.
“Very few people can lose 30 percent of their body
weight and keep it off for any duration,” said
Richard Miller, a member of the foundation and a gerontologist
at the University of Michigan.
Fontana, the St. Louis researcher, found none of the
followers seemed to be suffering from eating disorders.
However, it’s not a lifestyle he would advocate
for most. “People have to eat less and better to
avoid these diseases that make them die prematurely.
But I don’t suggest that people do severe calorie
restriction unless supervised by an expert,” Fontana
said.
Smith, meanwhile, has persuaded her mother to try the
diet.
“She sees the energy level I have, how healthy
I look,” she said.
Smith envisions midlife and old age as she lives today:
a road warrior, fighting for the rights of workers —
the hip, wise chick in perfect health.
“It will take more than 70 years to make the world
a better place,” she said. “I need more time.”
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