Agreed. I stopped reading when the author got into a snit because "Control animals were fed 20% more than their average daily intake". It seems clear from context that that was to allow the animals to eat as much as they wanted, the animals were not force-fed 20% more. They're given extra food in case they feel extra hungry that day. It's standard in caloric restriction experiments to feed one group of animals ad libitum, and the other group, some fraction of the ad libitum rate. The effect of caloric restriction on life span has been known for decades, well before it penetrated the mainstream consciousness, and has been described for many different species under many different experimental regimes. It's a robust effect, and a mysterious one.

This article smacks of 9/11 truther, anti-evolution froth. The author has an agenda and she'll pound on her podium until she bludgeons us into agreement that all science infrastructure is corrupt and nothing we read could possibly be true.

Admittedly, there's a lot of junk science out there, and the authors of this study could have waited another 10 years before reporting any results. But put yourself in their shoes: you're starting to see an effect. Every time you go to a conference, people say, "So, how's that multidecade experiment of yours going?" So why not report what you see, and publish another paper in 10 years? It doesn't have to be a conspiracy. Really.

The problem is that in ten years there will still be many unanswered questions. Science is a series of progress reports. They chose to publish and their peers agreed that the work was publishable.

On food availability: many animals, such as mice and dogs, are less able to restrain their own diet and will overeat if allowed to do so. This would lead to the control group overeating, not eating only the number of calories they need, and increasing their chance of obesity-related death. I think a better study might have given the control group the expected number of calories they would require, then significantly restricted the test group.

This study also did not support that calorie restriction increases lifespan, like you do. No study has been able to do that yet. All the studies have been able to do is show that laboratory animals can live longer with a restricted calorie diet. There are many variables controlled for in those studies which are not controlled for in the general human population.

Do you get more exercise than simply sitting in your bedroom all day? If so you do not match the studies. Do you interact with people outside your home or do people ever come into your home? If so you do not match the studies. Were you bred for laboratory study? If not you do not match the studies.

No one has show that calorie restrictive diets have worked in humans yet. Evidence is the best studies, like this one, have not been able to show a statistically significant difference in life span.

What are you talking about? He linked to the study and priced it out for you, but he didn't read it? The article compared the actual findings of the study with what was reported in the media and press releases.

I don't care how careful they were in explaining why they vacated many of the deaths; if you're trying to show that monkeys live longer on calorie restricted diets, you can't do that. At least, you can't if you want to convince me or most rational people.

More importantly, you can't let the media go and publish that you found something when you didn't.

That, particularly, is what makes this junk science. The data isn't necessarily incorrect or contaminated, but we have to be careful not to over-generalize the findings.

There are too many factors not accounted for in this study to apply it to general use in humans. My favorite example is that laboratory colonies are isolated from many pathogens, and thus they exclude disease interaction. In most studies this is desired, but in a whole-life study like this it cannot be ignored if it will be applied to people out in the wild.

This study can only be used to think about this specific effect on aging in isolation and look for mechanisms which we can then test in the general population.