A guest post by Chloé Sharrocks
My partner started working at Cadbury last September and with the free chocolate gradually filling our kitchen cupboard, I dragged him along to what I thought would be an event focusing on healthier eating in an effort to live longer. However, it soon transpired that the word ‘leaner’ did not specifically refer to the quality of the meat, but instead highly restrictive low calorie diets.
The event at the Dana Centre involved three panellists: Dr David Gems a researcher at UCL in ageing, Dave Fisher who has followed a calorie restricted diet for 20 years and Professor Christina Victor a gerontologist at Reading University.
Dr Gems’ introduction explained that although genes are known to control ageing, the biology involved is far from understood. Laboratory work is capable of increasing the lifespan of nematodes which if replicated in humans would lead to us reaching the ripe old age of 700! If scientists could treat ageing, then they would also have a broad spectrum of treatment against age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Professor Victor also discussed the social-economic problems that come with an ageing society; it is anticipated there will be 35,000 centenarians in Britain within 20 years compared with 5000 currently.
This is where Dave Fisher comes in. Inspired by dietary restriction experiments conducted on rats, he is an advocate of calorie restriction. Limiting himself to 1600 calories a day (2500 is the recommended amount for men), he aims to prevent the age-related diseases which he has feared since childhood. Replicating a primitive ancestral diet, he restricts himself to only lean, wild meat such as venison and rabbit, non-starch vegetables, berries, a spoonful of rice bran daily and no dairy products. Like Cliff Richard and Des O’Connor, he also advocates eating only two meals – lunch and dinner. Rather scarily he dismisses audience’s concerns of cravings or hunger, instead admitting to also doing small amounts of exercise to maintain his muscle mass and cardiovascular fitness.
At the age of 51, doctors have previously claimed Fisher has the body of a 32 year old and a blood pressure equivalent to a 20 year old. An inspiring story until he confesses to using a sunbed every day to ensure he gets the necessary vitamin D in his diet.
Although the calorie restriction diet is enlightening (if rather intimidating), with the BBC reporting on Wednesday that the number of people in England having surgery to combat obesity has risen by 40% in the last year, I cannot imagine the diet catching on any time soon.
Overall the Dana Centre event was intellectually stimulating, but the benefits of calorie restriction did not inspire myself or other audience members to give up our Chinese takeaways, or roast dinners with family any time soon.