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Travis2000 Lowcaldiet

Calorie-restricted monkeys have fewer cancer and endometriosis chronic diseases. Cancer has been found in seven of the well-fed monkeys and in two of the dieting ones. Calorie restriction can extend an animal's natural life span and reduce its odds of diseases.

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84 views1 page

Travis2000 Lowcaldiet

Calorie-restricted monkeys have fewer cancer and endometriosis chronic diseases. Cancer has been found in seven of the well-fed monkeys and in two of the dieting ones. Calorie restriction can extend an animal's natural life span and reduce its odds of diseases.

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api-242611795
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© © All Rights Reserved
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LOW-Cal diet may reduce cancer in monkeys

Heres a fact that people stuffed with


Thanksgiving stuffing might well contemplate: According to studies of short-lived
species such as worms, flies, and mice,
slashing normal calorie consumption by
one-third can extend an animals natural
life span and reduce its odds of diseases
such as cancer. Researchers monitoring
monkeys on calorie-restricted diets have
also seen signs that this strategy can
benefit long-lived primates (SN: 3/15/97,
p. 162) and, presumably, people.
At a gerontology meeting in Washington, D.C., this week, Angela Black of the
National Institute on Aging (NIA) in
Bethesda, Md., reported for the first time
preliminary data suggesting that calorierestricted monkeys are developing fewer
chronic diseases, particularly cancer and
endometriosis, than are monkeys that
eat as much as they want.
Its becoming evident that calorie restriction is having the expected benefits
in primates, says Mark Lane, who heads
the NIA primate study.
Started more than a decade ago with
both young and middle-age animals, the
study has followed 60 female and 60 male
rhesus monkeys. Researchers divided
them into a group that ate without limit
and another that consumed only 70 percent as many calories as the first did.

For each group, Black and her colleagues recently tallied the incidence so
far of conditions such as ulcers, cataracts,
cancer, endometriosis, and heart disease.
Of the 60 well-fed monkeys, 25 have experienced one or more of the chronic diseases, in contrast to just 13 animals from
the calorie-restricted group.
The greatest disparity appears in diseases of cell proliferation, such as cancer
and endometriosis. The NIA team has
found cancer in seven of the well-fed
monkeys and in two of the dieting ones.
Only one calorie-restricted female has developed endometriosis, while six of the
other females have.
In a similar NIA study of 48 male squirrel monkeys, which have a shorter life
span than rhesus monkeys, 7 cancer
cases have shown up in the well-fed animals over 13 years and none have appeared in the dieting group.
The researchers are now conducting
mathematical analyses to determine how
likely it is that these disparities result
from chance alone, but other scientists
find the preliminary results provocative.
The NIA numbers are very intriguing,
says Joseph W. Kemnitz of the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, who also studies a
colony of calorie-restricted monkeys.
Those animals tend to be younger than

the ones in the NIA study, and Kemnitz


tells SCIENCE NEWS that his group hasnt
yet documented cases of cancer or endometriosis in its monkeys.
Its not clear how calorie restriction
would reduce the risk of endometriosis
and cancer, although theres evidence
that it slows cell division, notes Black.
There are also hints from the NIA
study and a similar one at the University
of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore that the monkeys on the low-cal diet are surviving longer, on average, than
well-fed monkeys.
Accepting that its unlikely that many
people can maintain a diet of 30 percent
fewer calories than theyre used to, scientists are considering whether drugs can
mimic calorie restriction. NIAs Lane studies 2-deoxyglucose, a synthetic molecule
similar to the sugar glucose. Cells take up
2-deoxyglucose as if it were glucose but
cant metabolize it to obtain energy as
they d o with glucose.
In rodent studies, administering 2-deoxyglucose produces some of the same
responses as calorie restriction, such as
reducing body temperature and lowering
the amount of insulin in the blood. The
NIA biologists are now testing whether
2-deoxyglucose treatments extend rodents life spans. The drug has significant
drawbacks, however. At high doses, its
toxic throughout the body and can kill
-J. Travis
brain cells, notes Lane.

Really big guys restrain youth violence


Biologists say the way to stop killing
sprees by male juvenile delinquents is to
bring in older males, at least if youre
dealing with elephants.
Until recently, the orphan male elephants in Pilanesberg National Park in
South Africa lived in an unnatural, predominantly adolescent world, explains
Rob Slotow of the University of Natal in
Durban. Starting in 1992, the young males
began rampaging, and in 5 years, they
had killed more than 40 white rhinos.
Introducing six full-grown bull African
elephants in 1998 settled down the
youngsters, Slotow says. In the Nov. 30
NATURE,he and his colleagues attribute
the turnaround to a shortening of the
time a young male spends in a testosterone-crazed state called musth.
The study should help conservationists who transplanted orphans to restore
elephant herds, Slotow says. Such relocations had skewed Pilanesbergs population. Slotow predicts that other sites will
have a problem with out-of-control juvenile elephants.
The project provided an unusual chance
to see if social structure controls testosterone rushes, Slotow adds. As male elephants grow up, testosterone surges lasting days to months make them irritable,
violent, and possessive of the herds recep
tive females. The males dribble urine, and

NOVEMBER 25,2000

temple glands ooze what smells like coal


tar. At the height of musth, an algal layer
builds up on the elephants penis, creating
a green sheen.
In mixed-age groups, males first enter
musth for several days or weeks between
the ages of 25 and 30. As males age,
musth lasts longer. A male in his 40s typicallv stavs in musth for 2 to 4 months.
cbauthor Joyce Poole of Nairobi,
Kenya, had noted that young males lose
the obvious signs of musth within hours
or even minutes of being menaced by a
higher-ranking male in musth. Biologists
hypothesized that youngsters were physically capable of sustained musth but
that run-ins with older males suppressed
the youngsters hormones.
Park ecologist Gus van Dyke first proposed importing older males to see if
theyd inhibit musth, which was lasting
up to 5 months, in the rampaging youngsters. After extensive detective work, hed
fingered the orphans as rhino slayers.
Kruger National Park could spare some
big bulls, but the scientists needed a special low-slung vehicle that would hold
standing elephants but fit under bridges
on the roads between the parks.
Krugers game-capture team pioneered
a protocol for the logistical nightmare of
moving adult bulls. The team injected
each elephant with a dart of tranquilizer,

SCIENCE NEWS, VOL. 158

A male Ah-ican elephant in musthhas

dripping temple glands and a bad temper.


winched the immobilized animal to the
edge of the truck, and then woke it up only enough to walk into the vehicle. During
the days 500-kilometer-plus drive, the vet
kept a pair of tranquilized bulls just alert
enough to stand on their own.
Over t h e next 20 months, at least one
of the six older adults was in musth during three 4-month intervals. During those
spells, youngsters showed signs of musth
for only brief periods and no elephant
killed a rhino.
The study provides t h e first field evidence in an experimentally altered situation that indeed musth in older male
African elephants does affect and reduce
musth in younger males, comments
L.E.L. Rasmussen of the Oregon Graduate
Institute in Beaverton, who studies elephant pheromones. She calls the work a
-S, Milius
highly significant study.
341

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