Should Friday night stay as pizza night?
I MAY have to forgo my Friday night pizza treat.
While the thought of abandoning a delicious margherita or quattro stagioni pizza at the end of the working week fills me with dread, new research suggests that not eating every other day is the answer to a long life.
US scientists have conducted tests which seem to show that animals which were only fed on alternate days built up a greater resistance to disease.
Applying the same theories to human beings, boffins suggest that not eating every other day will help us lose weight, boost our brain power, help tackle diseases like Alzheimer’s and even extend our lifespan.
Restricting calorie intake also seemed to improve memory in older people.
But is all of this long life and starvation business worth giving up my mouth-watering pizza on Friday evening?
(And don’t even get me started on forsaking real ale at the weekend – that would be like entering some health promotion twilight zone.)
Frankly, starving ourselves towards a brighter future does seem rather extreme.
Bombarded on every side by a daily avalanche of health advice, it’s easy to see why some people take the opposite route towards calory-rich guilty pleasures.
The artist David Hockney, for instance, has long campaigned on behalf of smokers and against the so-called ‘nanny state.’
Hockney’s all for allowing adults to smoke themselves to oblivion, because it’s their free choice.
This liberal stance is all well and good, as long as someone else’s nicotine habit doesn’t intrude on the health of non-smokers.
But I’m sure there’s something in the latest research about eating less.
I’m not a vegetarian, and am unlikely to be, but I know from experience that digesting the meat of some dead animal slows my body down.
Going for a run the day after a Sunday roast often feels twice as difficult.
A balanced diet and less food would probably help most of us extend our time on earth.
But maybe I’ll give up my Friday night pizza next week ...
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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