この話を見たとき、すぐにいろいろなところで紹介されるだろうな、と思っていたが、思ったほど紹介されていない-->と思ったらやっぱり紹介されていた。こことかこことか。まあ、古い記事だし、英語の勉強のために書きます。
''One for the Ages: A Prescription That May Extend Life"(NYT Oct. 31, 2006):
摂取するカロリーの量を30パーセントほど減らす、カロリー制限という方法が老化を防ぐのにさまざまな動物で有効らしい。
This approach, called calorie restriction, involves eating about 30 percent fewer calories than normal while still getting adequate amounts of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. Aside from direct genetic manipulation, calorie restriction is the only strategy known to extend life consistently in a variety of animal species.
One for the Ages: A Prescription That May Extend Life - The New York Times
カロリー制限と似た効果のある薬ができれば、人間の寿命は長い人で140歳まで延びるという人もいる。
Extrapolating from recent animal findings, Dr. Richard A. Miller, a pathologist at the University of Michigan, estimated that a pill mimicking the effects of calorie restriction might increase human life span to about 112 healthy years, with the occasional senior living until 140, though some experts view that projection as overly optimistic.
カロリー制限が長寿にさまざまな種で効果があることは、1930年代から知られていた。
In 1935, Dr. Clive McCay, a nutritionist at Cornell University, discovered that mice that were fed 30 percent fewer calories lived about 40 percent longer than their free-grazing laboratory mates. The dieting mice were also more physically active and far less prone to the diseases of advanced age.
Dr. McCay’s experiment has been successfully duplicated in a variety of species. In almost every instance, the subjects on low-calorie diets have proven to be not just longer lived, but also more resistant to age-related ailments.
写真はカロリー制限をしたサル（左）とそうでないサル（右）。
カロリー制限をしたサルとそうでないサルとのちがいを示したグラフ。
しかし、人間への効果はまた未知数。
Despite widespread scientific enthusiasm, the evidence that calorie restriction works in humans is indirect at best. The practice was popularized in diet books by Dr. Roy Walford, a legendary pathologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who spent much of the last 30 years of his life following a calorie-restricted regimen. He died of Lou Gehrig’s disease in 2004 at 79.
また、やせている人が長生きする、というわけではない。
But many experts are unsettled by the prospect, however unlikely, of Americans adopting a draconian diet in hopes of living longer. Even the current epidemiological data, they note, do not consistently show that those who are thinnest live longest.
長生きさせるのはよくないこと？
面白いのは、人を長生きさせることに反対する生命倫理学者がいること。
While an anti-aging pill may be the next big blockbuster, some ethicists believe that the all-out determination to extend life span is veined with arrogance. As appointments with death are postponed, says Dr. Leon R. Kass, former chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, human lives may become less engaging, less meaningful, even less beautiful.
“Mortality makes life matter,” Dr. Kass recently wrote. “Immortality is a kind of oblivion ― like death itself.”
しかし、不死になるというならこの人の危惧も理解できるが、長生きをするというだけでどうしてそういうことが言えるのだろうか。20世紀21世紀の人はほんの何百年前の人よりもだいぶ長生きするだろうが、われわれの生活は"less engaging, less meaningful, even less beautiful"になっているだろうか。
