Biotech's Diet In A Bottle Could Extend Your Life

If you cut a mouse's daily calorie intake by 30%, it will live at least 30% longer than its normal two-year life span. Some say this is because the body under stress produces protective substances. The trick works with worms and fruit flies, too, and would probably extend life in humans, scientists believe. But we'd all have to learn how to eat just enough to stay alive. This isn't about forgoing Girl Scout Cookies or three-course meals: A true anti-aging diet could be pure torture.

A handful of biotech companies are developing drugs that produce the effects of such "caloric restriction" in the body without depriving people of food. Anti-aging doctors would love to prescribe a medication that would extend their patients' life spans to 125 years -- extrapolating from mice. But companies would have no avenue for seeking Food & Drug Administration approval for such a treatment. "It would be undoable," says Stephen J. Hoffman, an investor in anti-aging biotech Sirtris Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Mass., who also sits on its board.