calorie restriction: increases DHEA?!

jyb

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I was reading on DHEA from Wikipedia and was surprised to read that calorie restriction increased DHEA (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 6502001468).

RP talks about DHEA as a youth hormone, decreasing with age. Yet, those animals on calorie restriction that show suppressed metabolism ("decreased body temperature" and other cited symptoms), their DHEA is increased. This is used in other studies as an argument to explain why calorie restriction improve life span. If I hadn't read RP, I would have concluded: slow metabolism -> increased DHEA -> longer life span.

What am I getting wrong?
 
J

j.

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Maybe part of the caloric restriction is fat restriction, which results in very low PUFA consumption?
 

Ingenol

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Nov 25, 2012
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Here's a blurb from Peat through Danny Roddy:

"Dr. Peat brings up two ideas about calorie restriction that aren't usually addressed:

“Several things relating to calorie-restricted diets are not generally known. First, in 1987, Schroeder found that the removal of toxic heavy metals from the diet had the same effect as caloric restriction. Second, although underfed animals grow more slowly, their metabolism is not necessarily depressed. (In fact, animals on a low protein diet have a higher​ rate of oxygen consumption than do the animals that eat a more normal diet.)”

— Raymond Peat, PhD

Additionally, reduced consumption of polyunsaturated fats, iron, and miscellaneous food toxins are all variables."

I think we really need to know what the variation in the monkeys' diets actually looked like, and moreover what the metabolic differences between the calorie-restricted and non-restricted groups. I think it's a great question though, and it's really important to question and refine our context repeatedly as we integrate new data.
 

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