RE: (OFFLIST) RE: specific amino acid restriction does the same thing as calorie restriction?

From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Sat Apr 19 2003 - 19:34:06 MDT

  • Next message: Damien Broderick: "Re: eve of construction"

    Since this failed to go offlist, and I'm not at my limit, may as well reply
    to say that I'm chewing over this protein creation vrs non-creation thing
    and concluding that I need to wait for other people to do more research.

    Based on watching the growth of the health-food industry (I'm just about old
    enough to remember that you went to one small specialty store to get your
    health food back in the day) I think that a PR-based diet (assuming that
    this works, etc) stands a real chance of doing well. Of course, it'll take
    10 years to get anywhere with that...by which time one would hope that:

    a) the gene-and-protein-expression-tinkerers have figured out a pill/therapy
    that does the same thing as CR.
    b) regenerative medicine can fix most of the major degenerative diseases and
    researchers are starting in on building therapies for the root causes of
    aging.

    If neither has happened in a decade from now, I, for one, will be
    disappointed.

    Reason
    http://www.exatio.com/

    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
    > [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom
    > Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2003 4:49 PM
    > To: extropians@extropy.org
    > Subject: (OFFLIST) RE: specific amino acid restriction does the same
    > thing as calorie restriction?
    >
    >
    > (I am reaching my eight-posts-per-day limit, so this is off-list.)
    >
    > You wrote,
    > > The only way I know of currently to activate these pathways
    > > is to remove some of the essential amino acids from the diet.
    >
    > Should this read "non-essential" amino acids?
    >
    > "Essential" aminos are those that cannot be synthesized in the body from
    > other aminos and must be eaten in the diet. "Non-essential" aminos are
    > those that can be synthesized in the body from other aminos and
    > do not have
    > to be eaten in the diet.
    >
    > I think eliminating some "non-essential" aminos in the diet would lead to
    > more synthesis of new aminos from other aminos and the synthesis of new
    > proteins. Eliminating "essential" aminos would cause a
    > deficiency that the
    > body could not recover utilizing other aminos.
    >
    > > The only way I know of currently would
    > > be to live on a diet biased towards beans or corn. I believe
    > > both of these may be deficient in one or more of the essential
    > > amino acids (Harvey or gts or someone may want to confirm this).
    >
    > Yep. They are not totally deficient in any one, but there is a definite
    > limiting factor where some are represented at much higher levels than
    > others. Beans and corn are both "incomplete" proteins which can
    > be combined
    > together to form "complete" proteins, but the body would have to put them
    > together. (Nutritional labels only show the "complete" protein portion.
    > The "incomplete" portions are not reported. Combining beans and corn will
    > result in more complete protein being available to the body than
    > the sum of
    > the two protein labels would indicate.)
    >
    > I just posted some comments that my veggie diet might have this
    > side-effect
    > of creating more new proteins, and I am intrigued about this PR
    > idea. I am
    > not sure if the protein restriction is reducing the amount of protein the
    > body can produce, or if it avoids the condition of excess proteins being
    > available that are not needed.



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