Eating less food ‘extends your life’

People can increase their lifespan by 20 years simply by eating 40 per cent less food, according to a new study carried out by specialists in the UK.

Experts at the Institute of Health Ageing at University College London have developed a treatment they hope will combat the process of ageing and also help people to stay slim.

In tests on rats, the researchers have found that reducing food intake to a healthy level can help to increase lifespan by up to 30 per cent.

Lead researcher Dr Matthew Piper explained to the Independent: “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.”

He added that further tests will now seek to establish whether the search is pertinent to humans, which could to new weight loss therapies that benefit people’s overall lives.

Would you eat less if it extended your life?