Have you ever noticed that every month seems to bring a trendy new diet and yet

obesity rates continue to rise and with it a growing number of health

problems. That's why I wrote my new book How Not To Diet. Check it out at your

local public library. Welcome to the Nutrition Facts podcast. I'm your host,

Dr. Michael Greger. Today we continue our series on intermittent fasting with

the story on how a slower metabolism may actually be a good thing. We've known

from more than a century that calorie restriction can increase the lifespan of

animals and the metabolic slowdown may be the mechanism. That could be why the

tortoise lives ten times longer than the hare. Rabbits can live 20 years whereas

Harriet, a tortoise evidently collected from the glopa goes by none other than

Charles Darwin himself in the 1830s lived until 2006. Slow and steady may win

the race. One of the ways your body lowers your resting metabolic rate is by

creating cleaner burning more efficient mitochondria, the power plants that

fuel ourselves. It's like your body passes its own fuel efficiency standards.

These new mitochondria create the same energy with less oxygen and produce

less free radical exhaust. After all, your body is afraid, famine is a foot and

so is trying to conserve as much energy as it can. The largest chloric restriction

trial to date indeed found both metabolic slowing and a reduction in free

radical induced oxidative stress, both of which may slow the rate of aging. The

flame that burns twice is bright burns half as long. But whether this will

result in greater human longevity isn't unanswered question. Chloric

restriction is often said to extend the lifespan of every species studied. But

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