Adios, Adkins

Adios, Atkins. It’s been a great ride.

Loved your steaks, cheese and deviled eggs. And those shameful one-course bacon dinners, you bad boy.

You did for bratwurst what the 21st Amendment did for gin, and lordy, we did have fun.

But it couldn’t last.

Last month, when my husband came home from the doctor with a cholesterol score closer to his SAT than to his IQ, we knew the party was over.

Time to turn out the lights and toss our T-bones onto the scrap heap of failed fad diets.

Others, apparently, are also having Atkins hangovers. Sales of low-carb foods have cooled off considerably since their salad days (ha, ha) in the first quarter, The Wall Street Journal reported recently.

My husband did lose up to 15 pounds at one point on Atkins. I concluded that a low-carb, high-fat-and-protein diet can kick-start a weight-loss program, but in the long run, exercise and a balanced diet, heavy on green vegetables and light on fat and refined sugar and carbs, are probably the best bet for overall good health.

But, of course, it isn’t that simple. A dieter’s day is never done.

Now there’s a whole new dimension in dieting called the calorie-restriction program. I read about it in Fortune magazine’s April package on anti-aging drugs and research.

People who subscribe to the CR regimen (www.calorierestriction.org) believe that dramatically reducing your calories adds years to your life and makes those years much healthier.

Numerous studies, the most famous with mice, show that animals that were fed 30 percent to 40 percent fewer calories lived 30 percent to 40 percent longer.

Similar studies are under way with monkeys. “The calorie-restricted monkeys, now middle-aged, show multiple signs of slowed aging, such as youthfully low blood pressure and even youthful looks,” according to the Fortune piece by David Stipp.

Similar results showed up in a 14-year study of Labrador retrievers. Researchers found that dogs fed 25 percent fewer calories lived 1.8 years longer than their fatter counterparts – 13 years as opposed to 11.2.

Just as important, the dogs that lived longer were healthier. Some chronic illnesses, most notably osteoarthritis, were kept at bay for much longer in the leaner dogs, Gail K. Smith of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine told that school’s Bellwether 55 newsmagazine in 2002.

Researchers don’t know whether the same holds true for humans, but many suspect so.

Some of the most interesting evidence is found in Okinawa, an island north of Taiwan. People there have the longest average life expectancy in the world – 81.2 years – and the highest percentage of centenarians ever documented. They eat up to 40 percent fewer calories than Americans and 17 percent fewer calories than the Japanese average.

According to the Associated Press, which interviewed the authors of The Okinawa Program, published in 2001: “Okinawans suffer 80 percent fewer heart attacks than North Americans and are twice as likely to survive one if they do. Stroke, hormone-related cancers and dementia are rare. There is little obesity.”

A diet heavy on fruits, vegetables, fish and moderation plays a major role in Okinawans’ good health, the authors say. So do genetics, exercise and a strong social network that reduces stress by keeping elders active in the community, often working into their 80s and 90s.

In Westchester County, N.Y., a Fortune writer spent a day with a 10-year devotee of the calorie-restriction diet. Paul McGlothin, a fiftysomething advertising executive, is nearly 6 feet tall but weighs only 133 pounds. He consumes 1,900 to 2,000 calories a day. A typical day’s fare for McGlothin includes brewer’s yeast, beet and onion soup, salmon, lentils, dandelion and green tea, blueberries and walnuts. He rises daily at 4 a.m. and doesn’t eat after 1 p.m. He claims to have the heart rate and blood pressure of an Olympic swimmer.

To me, McGlothin’s CR diet sounds like torture, and I think Fortune writer Grainger David felt the same way. But the good news, according to some, is that you don’t have to starve to live longer and better.

Best-selling author Dr. Michel Roizen says 30 percent of aging is genetically inherited. The other 70 percent is affected by environmental causes and behavioral choices. Roizen, a New York internist and author of The RealAge Makeover: Take Years Off Your Looks and Add Them to Your Life, says small lifestyle changes can make big improvements in life quality and expectancy.

Roizen has a popular Web site (www.RealAge.com) where you can take a free test that purports to calculate your real age, as opposed to your chronological age, based on what you eat, how much you’ve smoked in your life, whether you’re diabetic, etc.

Here are Roizen’s top 10 ways to reduce your real age:

1. Take vitamins C, E, D, B6, calcium and folate daily to make your real age six years younger.

2. Quit smoking and avoid passive smoke. They add eight years.

3. Lower your blood pressure. A person with low blood pressure (about 115/75) is as much as 25 years younger than a person with high blood pressure (over 160/90).

4. Reduce stress. In highly stressful times, your real age can be as much as 32 years older than your calendar age.

5. Floss regularly. Adds 6.4 years.

6. Exercise regularly. Adds nine years.

7. Wear a seat belt. Adds 3.4 years.

8. Have sex. Adds up to eight years.

9. Patrol your own health. Adds 12 years.

10. Take the RealAge test and develop your own age-reduction plan. Adds up to 26 years.

I took the test and I’m seven years younger than I thought. My birth certificate says I’m 51.3 years, but my RealAge is 44.3.

There’s only one way to celebrate, and I think you already know what that is: beer and brats all around.