Instead of having to go through a calorie restriction diet, it may be better just to use a combination of calorie restriction mimetics. These are drugs or supplements that mimic the biological benefits of calorie restriction, and examples include resveratrol, metformin, carnosine, and other less commonly available (leptin, oxaloacetic acid etc). The result could be just as good.

At this moment, we don't know if these so called 'calorie restriction mimetics' actually increase the lifespan. Resveratrol, for example, probably doesn't work. It's also possible to do CR and take some mimetics like I do (metformin). Because the mechanisms of these mimetics and CR aren't completely clear it could be that some of these mimetics lengthen the lifespan by pathways unrelated to CR and in that case the so called mimetic and CR together would probably extend the lifespan even further than either one alone.

We don't know if calorie restriction extends lifespan in humans, but we assume it does. If CR activates SIR2 and protects against heart disease, but resveratrol does also, then you have the same result without the diet. There are hundreds of biochemical/clinical/genetic effects of CR that can be mimicked by these compounds. See:

http://www.bentham.org/open/tolsj/openaccess2.htm

resveratrol does not activate SIRT1 (SIR analogue in humans)
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/...000006/art00010

CR does not activate SIRT1 either. see this post

You can't mention one negative study when the majority of scientific research shows that CR does activate SIRT1 , and that resveratrol also does activate it. It is the research as a whole that matters, not just one or two studies that reach the opposite conclusion.

There is more than one study. But I may ahve mispoken; CR and resveratrol do not upregulate Sirt1, though they appear to activate it in this gene array study.

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