The latest data from a 25-year study published in the journal Nature Communications suggests that monkeys on a calorie-restricted diet live longer and have fewer age-related diseases compared to their peers who ate whatever they wanted..

This experiment began back in 1989 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was one of two long-term research projects in the US that have studied the effect of calorie restriction on humanoid primates.. Surprisingly, the latest data from this experiment contradicted the results of another study of the same duration, conducted by the National Institute on Aging, which showed no significant difference in the survival of control and calorie restricted monkeys..

According to a previous study, there are two main factors that have the greatest impact on longevity: good genes and a healthy, balanced diet.. What's more, scientists believe that calorie restriction with continued intake of essential nutrients can extend the life cycle of yeast, flies, and rodents by up to 40%..

Calorie restriction has attracted the attention of researchers due to its dramatic effects on aging and the frequency and timing of onset of age-related diseases.. Drugs that affect the mechanisms active in caloric restriction are also being studied.. In a recent study using monkeys, primates in the free-feeding group were found to have three times the risk of death.. According to one of the founders of the Wisconsin project, professor of medicine Richards Weindrach, their experiment shows that the biology of lower organisms is comparable to that of primates..

The findings could well lead to the future development of drugs that could slow the onset of disease or even death..

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