Scientists know that rats fed a nutritionally ade-quate diet of 30 percent fewer calories than nor-mal tend to live 30 percent longer. Similar effects have been observed in organisms from yeast to fruit flies but not, as yet, in primates. At the Uni-versity of Wisconsin, researchers led by Richard Weindruch have been testing a calorie-restricted diet in a group of rhesus monkeys since 1989. The monkey on this page, a dieter, is 25 years old; the one opposite, part of a control group, is a bit over 26. (Both are featured in the next three pages.) Though it's too early to make strong claims about the effects of calorie restriction on these animals, the preliminary results suggest that the dieting monkeys are healthier as they enter old age.
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