The life expectancy of humans has been a topic of study for many years, and researchers have finally found something substantiate that could help us live longer.
British scientists are of the opinion that reducing the daily intake of food by 40 per cent may help in increasing one's life span by 2 decades, claim the Daily Mail reports.
This group of researchers working at the Institute of Health Ageing at University College London is developing a treatment that will hopefully combat the 'disease' of ageing. They are looking into two main factors that influence life expectancy: genetics and life style, and how they can add years or decades to a person's life.
Researchers also claim that many age-related illnesses such as cardio-vascular disease, cancer and neurodegeneration can be fought.
Currently, these scientists are experimenting on animals which share a similar genetic makeup to that of humans, such as rats and fruit flies.
"If you reduce the diet of a rat by 40 per cent it will live for 20 or 30 per cent longer. So we would be talking 20 years of human life. This has shown on all sorts of organisms, even Labradors", says the lead researcher, Dr Matthew Piper, as quoted by The Independent.
The team has experimentally prolonged the healthy life span in both mice and fruit flies by using drug treatments and modified diet. They are confident that this would work on humans too.
Though many can be sceptical about meddling with nature's course of action, people would certainly do anything from eating less to stop eating altogether to delay ageing.
