Why Do the Well-fed Die Young?

Author: Margo I. Adler, BioEssays

The journal Bioessays regularly publishes video abstracts of their articles. Especially outstanding is this example where Margo I. Adler, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, describes a new evolutionary hypothesis for the effect of dietary restriction on lifespan.

Dietary restriction adaptively up-regulates cellular recycling mechanisms like autophagy, a self-degradative process of the cell, and apoptosis, the process of programmed cell death. This increases resource efficiency and promotes immediate reproduction. Old-age pathologies, such as cancer, are reduced as a side effect and this extends the lifespan in laboratory environments.


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