Cabinet Magazine, Issue 41, Spring 2011
Remember Biosphere? The experiment out in the desert testing our planetary colonization skills. It was an intricate maze of self-contained domes, housing plants, animals, and a few brave individuals. Though the two year test was publicly deemed a failure, many fields benefited from the experience; from psychology, to green energy engineering, all the way to food and nutrition. This is where we pick it up. This is the story of Dr. Roy Walford, and his calorie restricted diet studies in Biosphere. Walford’s claim was calorie-restricted diets slow the aging process.
His theory has been around a long time and is still going strong, with ongoing research at Washington University in St. Louis (Go home team!), among others. It seems interesting enough that the NY Times publishes an in-depth article on the topic every few years – One for the Ages: A Prescription That May Extend Life, 2006 and The Calorie Restriction Experiment, 2009.
While I don’t want to give away the ending, let me just say, it holds a certain poignancy over the whole diet thing. Thanks again to Cabinet Magazine, and writer Christopher Turner. Love you guys.
Another link to the article on Dr. Wolford and Biosphere is here.
(I’m excited I wrote this without mentioning Bio-Dome or Pauly Shore…until just now.)
The Mind Body Moderate 