Fulltext: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/85192141/2012-mattison.pdf

As someone who recently embarked on a restricted-calorie diet, I can say that I'm not inclined to live longer in the sense of past the average life-span. I'm more inclined to have a higher quality of life and live long enough to see my child into his adulthood.

That said, outside of weightloss and increased energy and stamina, I have noticed a few things about a reduced-calorie diet (and I'm talking 1000 calories or less most days):

1) I don't think about food as anything but fuel. I no longer think of it as a way to be social, to pass the time, or to be happy.

2) While it's possible to eat 1000 calories of calorie dense food with almost no other nutrition (sugar), I find that hunger demands I eat things that have more mass with less calories (vegetables and some proteins).

3) My day no longer revolves around eating. Pretty simple, but previously, I would be very concerned with what I had eaten the day before and might eat tomorrow. Outside of the measurements I'm keeping about caloric intake, I seldom think about food.

4) I'm saving money. I used to eat out a lot. Eating out, except for maybe a salad, makes it hard to reduce caloric intake. Now, I eat at home on the pound-for-pound cheaper food we can get at the farmer's market or grocery store.

Other article: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4450307

There was a Univ of Wisconsin study, and an "Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio" study, and their results contradict.

I don't understand the problem with eating what you feel like when you're hungry, and stopping when you're full. You'd think a billion years of evolution would enable us to find a decent equilibrium by listening to our bodies. Obviously, it's the stopping when you're full part that's hard...

I would argue that the point of a low-calorie diet isn't to live longer, but to look "better" (this, I guess depends on just how low the calorie count is).

A lot of the things we do "look healthy" doesn't make us live longer.

Check out the recent BBC Horizon documentary on this very subject http://youtu.be/Pfna7nV7WaM

"... if you're a monkey."

They should have fed these monkeys Highly processed, sugary foods and fast foods. Foods containing pesticides, low fiber and containing preservatives, antibiotics and growth hormones(a typical poor American diet). Then see which group loves longer.

This would have had far more value since it is truer to life at least for Westerners.

The less food you eat, the less wear on your organs right? the less toxins your body accumulates.

I didn't know anyone claimed longevity as a benefit of a low-calorie diet. I'd always heard "low-calorie" used to combat obesity. And less obesity == more longevity. But never "love longer on fewer calories." Whether this is scientific demonstrable is another matter entirely.

My personal theory is that avoiding gluttonous behavior will do you just fine. Stop when you're full. If you can do that, then you probably have the sensibilities to eat a well-rounded variety of foods. And you're done. That's it. Self-control & variety, Live Forever®