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Article: Nutrition, Caloric Restriction
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Aging
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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NUTRITION, CALORIC RESTRICTION
The first work that linked caloric restriction to an extension of life span was published in 1935 by Clive McCay and his colleagues, nutritionists at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Their studies showed that restricting the food intake of rats soon after weaning increases their length of life. Since then, this finding has been confirmed many times in rats, mice, and hamsters. In most of these studies, animals fed
ad libitum
(allowed to eat as much as they want) were compared to those restricted to 50 to 60 percent of that amount of food, with care being taken to provide a sufficient diet to avoid malnutrition.
Decreasing food intake has also been ...