Tom Matthews wrote: [Someone else wrote:] >> What the acronym CRAN stands for ? > > It comes from the email list of the CR Society, > a group of people trying to increase their > health and lifespan through calorie restriction.Actually, it comes from Ben Best, who started a separate CR list, called the CRAN list. (See below on how to subscribe to his list.)
> Some people on the list believe that Calorie > Restriction with Adequate Nutrition (CRAN) would > be a better description because it is important > to make the distinction between keeping up > adequate nutrition (balance of nutrients and > RDA's of vitamins, etc) as you reduce your > calories, and just simply starving yourself > (as anorexics do).There are some people on the CR list who think that "Calorie restriction" ("CR") is not the best name for the diet we practice, myself included, but I think "CRAN" is one of the worst of the alternatives that have been suggested. 1) For one thing, it should be "FRAN" (Food....), to avoid redundancy. (What anorectics do is FR.)
2) "CR" has the advantage of familiarity. Say "CR" to anti-aging researchers, and they understand. Say "CRAN," and they say "What?" (And then say, "Oh the 'AN' stands for 'adequate nutrition.'" And then they say: "What? Why do you think we (well, most of us) stopped saying DR (dietary restriction) or FR (Food Restriction)?: we mean leave everything else the same, just restrict Calories. Plus: what do you mean by 'adequate'? -- RDA's? What the Life Ext. Foundation says? Or what? Kind of confusing, and also pretentious, don't you think? The nature of the 'adequacy' of nutrition is something we want to stress is under investigation. Furthermore, Calories are nutrients too, of which there is an adequate amount for each person. So then shouldn't the name just be 'Adequate Nutrition', if you want to use the word 'adequate'?")
2a) Creating a new name creates a separation between the lay public and scientists, who almost always use "CR."
3) Also, the conditions for the success of CR go far beyond not restricting things in food that aren't energy (Cals.), they include, also, not restricting sleep, not restricting the wearing of seatbelts, etc. If, in the name for the longevity diet, one lets the wearing of seatbelts be understood, why not let other things that are generally known to be consistent with a healthy life be understood, like eating well (however much we don't know precisely what that is)? CR for the purposes of increasing longevity is a way of life: take a life that is health-promoting (so far as we can tell), and reduce energy consumption. Part of why I like "CR" is that it focuses on the phenomenon that does the work: the reduction of Calories. When I talk to people about CR, and start talking about eating veggies and low fat foods, they often start thinking the diet works for the reasons that the Ornish is thought to work. That is mistaken (in fact the opposite is probably true). It's not the fruit or veggies, it's THE REDUCTION IN ENERGY INTAKE that retards aging. This is what's so fascinating about the diet, and what needs to be stressed to get people to see that this is not just a "health diet."
4) People don't design a diet around initials. And "CR" never appears alone, it always in a sentence, at least, if not many sentences, in which many other things about the diet are mentioned.
What _do_ we know about the longevity diet? Well, we know with a high degree of certainty that restricting the Calories of an otherwise healthy diet (consumed by a person with healthy sleep habits, who practices safe sex, wears seatbelts, etc., etc.) results in an anti-aging effect. That's all we know: restrict Calories (and if you need this qualification: "and don't restrict other stuff"), and you get benefit. We know many instances of nutrition which are sufficient to increase longevity, but we can't say, with any precision, what the _threshold_ of adequacy is. Without being able to specify the threshold, we can't _define_ "adequate," however easy the achievement of adequacy appears to be.
Note: I do not think that "CR" is the perfect term. But I think any addition to, or change in, the term should capture the telos of the diet (I think someone else mentioned this a few months back). My web page has always been called: "CALORIE RESTRICTION FOR THE PURPOSE OF RETARDING AGING: FREQUENTLY ANSWERED QUESTIONS." For a brief time I called CR "anorexia longeva". I think this name would be excellent except for one big problem: anorexia means, following the Greek roots: "without appetite." (Another prob: the initials might be taken to stand for "ad libitum"!) We aren't without appetite, rather, we're _spiting_ our appetite. Still the name is useful in many ways, one of which is to highlight the risk in CR of becoming pathologically anorexic, something not often considered on this list.
CRAL (CR Aiming at Longevity)?
CROL (CR Oriented towards Longevity)?
Names like these capture the essential part of the diet, the restriction of Calories, but also emphasize the goal-oriented nature of the diet, which stresses a whole lifestyle that is a precondition of the success of the diet, but doesn't try to specify precisely what that lifestyle is -- i.e., emphasizes our lack of knowledge and the need for further research.
I'd love to hear suggestions on names. My own view is that the name should probably stay the same, mainly because of its use in the scientific community. But if we change it, it should be a change to a better name.
[....]
-Brian.
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