It’s well known that American’s eat far too much food and as a result we have some of the shortest life expectancies of modern and advanced nations. The reason for this is obvious to many people who have noted the wide supply of medical research on what can be done to increase the length of life for animals of all kinds. The best way to increase longevity is to eat less food.

For years scientists have shown that feeding animals a calorie restriction diet compared to a normal diet results in remarkable increases in life lifespan and overall health. In fact every animal studied has seen a lengthening of their lifespan by roughly 20-60 percent when compared to the lifespan of other animals eating a normal diet.

If you consider the implications of all this research it is easy to assume that if people were to follow a similar diet of calorie restriction we could also experience lifespans much longer that what we as a species currently expect.

The average lifespans of developed nations range from the high 70s to the low 80s depending on the nation and the gender of the person. If for instance everyone were to cut their caloric consumption by roughly 30 percent then that could equate to an increase in average life expectancy by at least 20 percent or 16 years. This would bring the average lifespan of humans to close to 100 years of age. And when you consider averages you can assume that many people would live much longer than that.

So what is the one method we can take from this to understand how to live a long life without taking experimental drugs or living out our last decades on the back of modern medicine? All we have to do is watch not what we eat but how much of it we eat. Science has shown us that yes there are some things that are very bad for us to eat in excess but if we instead focus on the quantity of what we eat we will be far more likely to live longer and healthier lives.