Arguably, the most important discovery in the biology of aging to date was that simply reducing food intake extended life and improved many aspects of health in a diversity of animal species. The conventional wisdom that emerged from first 50 years of rodent food restriction studies included (1) that the longevity impact of restriction was greater the longer restriction was imposed, and (2) that restricting calories rather than any specific macronutrient was critical to its health and longevity benefits. However these assumptions began to crumble as more and more restriction research was performed on other species besides laboratory rodents. Recent investigations of flies, rodents, monkeys, and increasingly humans, has begun to parse how calorie restriction, protein restriction, intermittent fasting, and the temporal pattern of eating all impact the health benefits of food restriction. Fly research continues to inform, as it has repeatedly shown that genotype, age, sex, duration, and tempo restriction all affect the health impact. Ultimately, optimizing human diets will require a personalized approach using omics approaches.

可以说，迄今为止，衰老生物学最重要的发现是，简单地减少食物摄入量可以延长寿命并改善多种动物的健康状况。从前 50 年的啮齿动物食物限制研究中得出的传统观点包括：(1) 限制施加的时间越长，限制对寿命的影响越大，以及 (2) 限制卡路里而不是任何特定的常量营养素对其健康至关重要，并且长寿的好处。然而，随着对实验室啮齿动物以外的其他物种进行越来越多的限制性研究，这些假设开始崩溃。最近对苍蝇、啮齿动物、猴子和越来越多的人类的调查，已经开始解析卡路里限制、蛋白质限制、间歇性禁食、和饮食的时间模式都会影响食物限制对健康的益处。苍蝇研究继续提供信息，因为它一再表明基因型、年龄、性别、持续时间和节奏限制都会影响健康影响。最终，优化人类饮食将需要使用组学方法的个性化方法。