Eat a Lot Less, Boost Your Immune System

It seems logical that food is good for your immune system, and morefood -- up to a point -- is even better. A normal diet, one might thinkwould be a Goldilocksian just-right.

Not so fast. (Or so fat.)

New research suggests that one of the reasons whycalorie-restrictive diets seem to result in longer lives because theyboost, rather than starve, the immune system.

HealthDay News has the details:

Limiting consumption of calories seems to boost key infection-fighting cells in the immune system, the researchers say.

"The key finding is that in a primate species, which is very similarto ourselves, there is a very remarkable effect on the maintenance ofthe immune system with caloric restriction," [a researcher said.]

I'veread about calorie restriction before, but I wonder if humans wouldaccept the idea of eating much, much less in return for longer lives.
How important is the pleasure of food to our quality of life? Or wouldwe just adjust to less quantity?

[Bodyhack self-promo: If you're not reading the full Bodyhack feed, check out today's other posts on psycho Bush voters, scanning for schizophrenia and finding fat on the inside.]