I seem to remember reading a study (cannot find it at the moment) hypothesizing a lower food intake triggers an evolutionary response. Basically: hungry->must find food->more alert
A friend last week described some study which he said showed some evidence that as you consume calories, your body winds forward in age, and that very simply calorie restriction may wind your clock forward more slowly. I believe he said something about mitochondria was involved, but I might have just been having flashbacks to Parasite Eve. I just did a little googling and there are a few abstracts out there.
If you are a mouse on the chubby side, then eating less may help you live longer. For lean mice - and possibly for lean humans, the authors of a new study predict -- the anti-aging strategy known as caloric restriction may be a pointless, frustrating and even dangerous exercise.
Metabolically humans alternate between anabolic and catabolic modes: sleep and eat more, then work more with less sleep and food. Human metabolism is a sophisticated system for smoothing out highly variable energy intake. Always eating the same three squares a day isn't synergistic. I have found skipping meals when busy to be a very good idea. There's a reason all cultures have traditional fast and feast cycles.
The idea of sustained caloric restriction, however, is probably stupid. You just want variable intake, not low intake. First of all, the studies are only of rats and worms. Secondly, the studies fail to control for the fact that the starved animals get more exercise whereas the well fed animals languidly sit around.
