Timeline of calorie restriction

This is a timeline of calorie restriction, attempting to describe significant events in the history of the topic, especially concerning scientific research. Many of the events described in this timeline are illustrative of a much greater body of research on calorie restriction.

Sample questions

The following are some interesting questions that can be answered by reading this timeline:

• How and when was the concept of calorie established? What are some foundational events describing its discovery?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Background".
  • You will mostly see early events in the field of bioenergetics establishing the existence and concept of calorie.
• What are some notable research cases involving calorie restriction?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Research".
  • For calorie restriction effect type in the organism, sort the full timeline by "Associated condition/effect (when applicable)".
  • You will see a variety of effects, ranging from behavior to health and longevity.
• What are some species having been studied in calorie restriction research?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Research subject species (when applicable)".
  • You will mostly see lab research in rodents. Other species, from nematodes to monkeys, are also mentioned.
• What are beneficial and what are harmful results for the organism in calorie restriction research?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Effect direction (when applicable)".
  • You will mostly see research cases concluding in beneficial results for subjects, most often rodents, but also other species. Harmful results are also described. Helpful results in humans are often in the form of advocacy rather than research.
• What are some books covering the topic of calorie restriction?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Literature".

Other events are described under the following types: "Concept development", "Diet introduction", "Notable incident", "Organization", "Policy", and "Recommendation".

Big picture

Time period	Development summary	More details
19th century–early 1930s	Conceptual foundations and early empirical hints	During this period, the calorie is defined, standardized, and integrated into nutritional science, enabling quantitative analysis of food intake. Early experimental work begins to associate reduced food intake with health outcomes, particularly cancer. In the early 20th century, Carlo Moreschi becomes the first to describe the effects of calorie restriction on tumor growth, marking the earliest documented link between calorie restriction and cancer prevention. This line of research is later supported by a broader body of animal studies demonstrating tumor-preventive effects of calorie restriction across species. Findings during this period are sometimes contradictory, and aging is not yet conceptualized as a biologically regulated process; calorie reduction is explored primarily in relation to growth, weight control, disease prevention, and general health.
1930s–1960s	Establishment of calorie restriction as a longevity intervention	The basic concept of calorie restriction as a distinct experimental intervention is established in the late 1930s, when controlled rodent studies demonstrate that sustained reduction of caloric intake without malnutrition markedly extends lifespan and delays the onset of age-related diseases. In the same decade, concerns emerge regarding the impact of calorie restriction on the growth and health of children, reflecting ongoing public health and nutritional debates while mechanisms of aging remain largely unexplored. During the 1940s and 1950s, many researchers report that calorie restriction retards or prevents diseases such as kidney disease, tumors, and leukemia. Replications across multiple species consolidate calorie restriction as the most consistent non-genetic lifespan-extending intervention known.
1970s–1990s	Expansion into mechanisms, model organisms, and system-wide effects	Beginning in the 1970s, research on calorie restriction and aging intensifies markedly, coinciding with the emergence of aging as a distinct biological research field. Calorie restriction is formalized as a standardized aging model and extended to short-lived genetic organisms such as Caenorhabditis elegans, enabling molecular and genetic investigation. Research expands to endocrine signaling, immune function, metabolism, oxidative stress, and organ-level aging processes. Around the late 1970s and early 1980s, renewed interest in the life-extending potential of calorie restriction emerges, with the work of Roy Walford playing a central role in both experimental research and public advocacy. During this period, calorie restriction becomes central to theoretical debates about conserved aging pathways.
2000s–present	Translation to humans and conceptual reframing	Research increasingly shifts toward non-human primates and controlled human trials, focusing on metabolic health, disease risk, and biomarkers of biological aging rather than direct lifespan extension. While cardiometabolic and physiological benefits are consistently observed, effects on aging rate and longevity appear modest and biomarker-dependent. Safety concerns and feasibility limit widespread adoption of strict calorie restriction, particularly following earlier clinical use of the very-low-calorie diet. At the same time, advances in molecular biology transform calorie restriction research. Whereas earlier work relied primarily on morphological pathology and physiology, molecular and cellular approaches are increasingly used to investigate the mechanisms underlying CR’s effects on health and aging. As a result, calorie restriction increasingly serves as a reference condition in geroscience, informing the development of intermittent fasting, dietary timing strategies, and calorie-restriction mimetics.

Full timeline

Inclusion criteria

The timeline includes:

• Foundational developments related to the definition, measurement, and adoption of the calorie as a unit of dietary energy.
• Key experimental studies reporting biological effects of calorie restriction on health, disease, metabolism, or lifespan across animal models and humans.
• Conceptual and terminological milestones, such as the formalization of calorie restriction as an aging model or the introduction of related concepts.
• Translational and clinical events that materially influenced human research, practice, or policy concerning calorie restriction.
• Notable adverse outcomes or safety-related incidents associated with extreme or poorly supervised calorie restriction practices.

The timeline generally excludes:

• Anecdotal dieting practices
• Non-research popular references
• Events without clear relevance to the scientific or historical development of calorie restriction.

Timeline

Year	Event type	Associated condition/effect (when applicable)	Effect direction (when applicable)	Research subject species (when applicable)	Details	Location/researcher affiliation
1819–1824	Background				The calorie is first introduced by French chemist Nicolas Clément, as a unit of heat energy, in lectures during these years.	France
1879	Background				French chemist Marcellin Berthelot distinguishes between gram-calorie (modern calorie) and kilogram-calorie (modern kilocalorie).	France
1887	Background				The use of the kilogram-calorie (kcal) for nutrition is introduced in the United States by American chemist Wilbur Olin Atwater, a professor at Wesleyan University.	United States (Wesleyan University, Connecticut)
1896	Background				The modern calorie (cal) is first recognized as a unit of the centimetre–gram–second system of units (cgs).	France
1909	Research	Health (cancer)	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Italian immunologist in Germany Carlo Moreschi finds that tumors transplanted into rats that are underfed do not grow as well as those transplanted into Ad libitum fed rats. This is the first hint that calorie restriction may have an effect on tumor progression. The finding would attract little immediate attention, but would be independently replicated by Francis Peyton Rous in 1914 and later by Albert Tannenbaum in the 1940s, eventually establishing the CR–cancer connection as one of the most replicated results in experimental oncology.	Germany
1914	Research	Health (cancer)	Helpful	Rodent	American virologist Francis Peyton Rous reports that reducing food intake inhibits the occurrence of spontaneous cancers in rodents.	United States
1917	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	American biochemists Thomas Osborne and Lafayette Mendel publish the first scientific study showing that restricting food extends life in rats. Though the finding is disputed almost immediately by Robertson and Ray (1920), it would be vindicated and substantially extended by Clive McCay's landmark studies in the 1930s, which establish calorie restriction as the most reproducible non-genetic intervention for lifespan extension known at the time.	United States (Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut)
1917	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Drosophila	American biologists Jacques Loeb and John H. Northrop report that reducing food availability extends the life of Drosophila fruit flies, providing the first evidence that dietary restriction prolongs lifespan in an invertebrate. Published in the same year as Osborne and Mendel's rat study, the finding suggests that the lifespan-extending effect of food restriction may be a general biological phenomenon rather than one confined to mammals. Despite its significance, the result would not be widely integrated into aging research until decades later, when Drosophila became a central model organism for the genetic and molecular dissection of CR-induced longevity.	United States
1918	Literature	Weight loss	Helpful	Human	American doctor Lulu Hunt Peters publishes Diet & Health: With Key to the Calories, which is aimed at women and presents the concept of calorie reduction as the best form of weight loss and watching weight.	United States
1920	Research	Longevity	Harmful	N/A	In opposition to the 1917 report by Osborne and Mendel, T. Robertson and L.A. Ray publish a scientific study concluding that restricting food shortens life. The contradictory result reflects methodological differences — including the degree of restriction and the age of onset — that would take decades to resolve. McCay's more controlled experiments in the 1930s would ultimately settle the debate in favor of the lifespan-extending view, though the episode illustrates the difficulty of standardizing calorie restriction protocols, a challenge that would persist into human research.	Australia (University of Adelaide), Canada (University of Toronto)
1925	Background				The calorie starts being defined in terms of the joule.	France
1935	Research	Longevity	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	American biochemist Clive McCay and colleagues publish a series of seminal papers showing that slowing post-weaning growth in rats through marked calorie restriction significantly increases lifespan. Their work—most notably the Journal of Nutrition paper The effect of retarded growth upon the length of life span and upon the ultimate body size—provides the first systematic and widely recognized experimental evidence that dietary restriction prolongs life, establishing calorie restriction as a foundational model in aging research. The study is conducted at a time when mean human lifespan has reached only 53 years, infant mortality remains high, and most vitamins have only recently been discovered; the impact of nutrition on children's growth is a primary concern of the period, and the mechanisms of aging are not yet on the scientific agenda. McCay's key innovation is restricting calories alone — rather than specific nutrients — while maintaining full nutritional adequacy, establishing the principle of "undernutrition without malnutrition" that would define the field for decades. Over the following two decades, the findings would be replicated across multiple species and extended to diseases including cancer, kidney disease, and leukemia, consolidating CR as the most consistent non-genetic lifespan-extending intervention known.	United States
1937	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Daphnia	American researchers L. Ingle, T.R. Wood, and A.M. Banta report that limiting food given to juvenile Daphnia longispina (water fleas) delays the start of reproduction, extends the reproductive period, and increases lifespan. This is the first use of calorie restriction in a nonmammalian species, and the first to describe what would become a general principle in the evolutionary theory of longevity: that genes selected for successful reproduction are linked to longevity. The finding would contribute to the theoretical framework connecting CR, reproduction, and lifespan that would be developed by evolutionary biologists in subsequent decades.	United States
1941	Research	Health (kidney disease)	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Research by J.A. Saxton and G.C. Kimball at Cornell Medical School reports that calorie restriction attenuates age-associated kidney disease (nephritis) in rats. The finding is part of a broader research program by Saxton's group that also produces, in 1948, evidence that CR retards a broad spectrum of spontaneous age-associated solid tumors in rats. Together these papers are among the first to demonstrate that CR's benefits extend beyond lifespan extension to active prevention of specific organ-level pathologies, contributing to the consolidation of CR as the most consistent non-genetic lifespan-extending and disease-preventing intervention known at the time.	United States (Cornell Medical School)
1942	Research	Health (cancer)	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	American cancer researcher Albert Tannenbaum reports that mice receiving a restricted intake of calories develop significantly fewer spontaneous mammary carcinomas than control mice on unrestricted diets, and that induced carcinomas are similarly reduced. He notes the importance of controlling for dietary intake in cancer research, and concludes that avoidance of overweight through calorie restriction may aid in the prevention of human cancer or delay its onset. The work is among the earliest systematic experimental evidence linking calorie restriction directly to cancer prevention in mammals.	United States
1946	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	American physiologists A.J. Carlson and F. Hoelzel become the first to propose and test intermittent fasting as a more practical alternative to daily calorie restriction for humans, noting that the abundance of food in modern society combined with humans' drive to eat would make continuous CR difficult to sustain. Testing various feeding-to-deprivation ratios in rats, they find that intermittent fasting — whether every other day or one day in four — significantly extends mean lifespan and reduces spontaneous tumor incidence compared with daily feeding. The paper establishes intermittent fasting as a distinct implementation of calorie restriction, a concept that would be revisited intensively in the 2000s and 2010s when intermittent fasting regimens became a major focus of human dietary research.	United States
1947	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Research by American physiologists Zelda B. Ball, Richard H. Barnes, and Maurice B. Visscher at the University of Minnesota reports that lifelong calorie restriction — reducing caloric intake by approximately one-third while maintaining adequate protein, vitamins, and minerals — markedly extends the lifespan of female A-strain mice: 25% of lifelong calorie-restricted mice remain alive when all full-fed controls have died, and the 50% mortality time from day 240 onward is 200 days for lifelong CR versus 125 days for controls. The paper also reports zero mammary cancer incidence in the lifelong CR group and finds that early restriction to 240 days followed by ad libitum refeeding produces only a slight, non-significant lifespan increase. The finding that timing matters — lifelong restriction being far more effective than early-life restriction alone — would become an important design consideration in subsequent calorie restriction research, influencing debates about when CR must begin to be effective and whether late-life initiation can still confer benefits.	United States (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis)
1948	Background				The current definition of the calorie is formally adopted as equivalent to approximately 4.2 joules.	France
1951	Research	Organ level effect (heart)	Helpful	Human	Study by Strom and Jensen recognizes beneficial effects of calorie restriction on heart function, drawing on observations of reduced cardiovascular mortality in the Norwegian population during the food shortages of World War II. The study is among the earliest human-level evidence that reduced caloric intake may confer cardiovascular benefits, anticipating by decades the controlled human trials that would later investigate CR's effects on cardiometabolic risk factors. It would be frequently cited as a natural experiment supporting the translational relevance of CR findings from rodents to humans.	Norway
1951	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Tokophrya infusionum	A study by Maria A. Rudzinska reports that calorie restriction decreases the mortality rate in Tokophrya infusionum (protozoan). The extension of CR's lifespan effects to a single-celled protozoan is significant because it suggests the phenomenon is not limited to multicellular organisms with complex metabolic regulation, supporting the emerging hypothesis that calorie restriction acts on conserved cellular mechanisms of aging. This cross-kingdom replication would contribute to the later search for molecular pathways — such as insulin/IGF-1 signaling and TOR — that are shared across phylogenetically distant species.	United States (New York University)
1960	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Study by Benjamin N. Berg and Henry S. Simms published in the Journal of Nutrition proposes a link between life extension and reduction in body fat content in calorie-restricted rats. The work contributes to a debate active at the time about whether CR extends life by slowing growth, reducing metabolic rate, or reducing body fatness — three hypotheses that are difficult to disentangle experimentally. By focusing on body composition rather than caloric intake alone, Berg and Simms help shift attention toward adiposity as a potential mediating variable in the CR-longevity relationship.	United States
1960	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Fish	British gerontologist Alex Comfort reports laboratory studies on female guppies showing that mortality increases steadily with age despite continued growth potential. Aging follows an actuarial pattern similar to that of small mammals like rats. The findings provide a baseline for later research on growth delay, dietary restriction, and longevity in vertebrates.	United Kingdom (University College London)
1961	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Rodent (brown rat)	Study by American nutritionist M.H. Ross reports that calorie restriction decreases the mortality rate in Rattus norvegicus (rat). The work builds on earlier findings by Osborne and Mendel (1917) and McCay et al. (1935) showing that food restriction extends life, and aims to clarify the relationship between dietary composition, caloric intake, and longevity. Ross finds that rats fed diets lower in calories live significantly longer, reinforcing the view that caloric intake rather than dietary composition is the primary determinant of lifespan extension under restriction. Importantly, the paper is the first in 25 years of CR experimentation to apply standardized mortality analysis using a cohort life table — a methodological advance that allows Ross to conclude rigorously, where earlier researchers had only speculated, that differences in life expectancy are due to the rate of development. This statistical rigor would become a standard requirement for all subsequent lifespan studies using CR.	United States (Biochemical Research Foundation, Newark, Delaware)
1965	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Rotifer (Philodina acuticornis)	Study by D.D. Fanestil and C.H. Barrows Jr reports that calorie restriction decreases the mortality rate in Philodina acuticornis, a species of freshwater bdelloid rotifers. At a time when lifespan extension by calorie restriction has been demonstrated mainly in rodents and a few invertebrates, the study extends the phenomenon to rotifers, contributing to the emerging view that the effect may be conserved across phylogenetically distant species. This cross-species replication strengthens the case that calorie restriction acts on fundamental biological mechanisms of aging rather than species-specific ones.	United States
1973	Research	Health (immune system)	Helpful	Rodent	Study by American pathologist Roy Walford et al. in rodents using an intermittent fasting protocol to explore the humoral responses of subjects reports that after 1 year of restriction, Immunoglobulin M and Immunoglobulin G antibody activity is augmented. Being among the first to study the effects of calorie restriction on immune function in rodents, Walford would become a strong advocate for the use of calorie restriction in humans.	United States (UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles)
1974	Research	Weight loss		Human	Researchers report that a very low energy diet (~300 kcal/day) produces extreme weight loss — up to about 45 kg over ~30 weeks — in severely obese patients. The formula provides protein, minimal carbohydrates and fats, plus vitamins and minerals. Although highly effective for weight loss, the approach raises safety concerns that would prove consequential: a series of deaths associated with very-low-calorie liquid protein diets in 1978 would prompt regulatory action, and the FDA would require warning labels on such diets by 1984. These safety concerns would ultimately lead to recommendations for minimum calorie thresholds and medical supervision in any very-low-calorie diet protocol.	United States
1975	Research	Immunosenescence	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	A study by M. Gerbase-DeLima and colleagues, working in Roy Walford's laboratory, of long-lived C57BL/6J mice under dietary restriction from weaning finds early immunosuppression in T- and B-cell responses, antibody production, and graft rejection. Most immune responses later recover and surpass controls by midlife, while graft rejection remains suppressed. The results suggest dietary restriction delays immune maturation, maintaining a more youthful immune profile and extending lifespan. The study is conducted as part of Walford's program to test his "Immunologic Theory of Aging" — published in his 1969 book of the same name — for which he required aged mice of similar chronological age but different immunological status, a need that CR uniquely meets. The finding that CR produces "younger" immune systems would become one of the most cited results supporting the use of CR as a model for aging research.	United States
1977	Research	Metabolic effect	Helpful	N/A	American biologist George A. Sacher proposes that calorie restriction retards aging by decreasing the intensity of energy metabolism — an early mechanistic hypothesis at a time when the biological basis of CR's lifespan effects is entirely unknown. Although the "rate of living" theory Sacher invokes would later be challenged by evidence that CR can extend lifespan without proportionally reducing metabolic rate, his proposal stimulates decades of research into the relationship between energy metabolism, oxidative stress, and aging, contributing to the oxidative stress theory of aging that would become prominent in the 1990s.	United States (Argonne National Laboratory)
1977	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Nematode (Caenorhabditis elegans)	Study by M.R. Klass demonstrates that dietary restriction extends lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans by diluting bacterial food, providing the first clear evidence of calorie-restriction–induced longevity in a genetic model organism. This finding establishes C. elegans as a central system for aging research, showing that reduced nutrient intake — without malnutrition — can robustly prolong life. Klass's work lays the experimental foundation for later genetic and molecular studies dissecting the pathways through which dietary restriction regulates metabolism, stress resistance, and longevity.	United States (University of Colorado Boulder)
1978	Notable incident	Mortality	Harmful	Human	58 people die in the United States after following very-low-calorie liquid protein diets, in what becomes a major public health incident. The deaths, largely attributed to cardiac arrhythmias associated with protein-sparing modified fasts providing inadequate calories and electrolytes, would directly prompt the FDA to require warning labels on very-low-calorie diet products by 1984 and would lead to clinical guidelines requiring medical supervision for such regimens. The episode would cast a long shadow over extreme calorie restriction research, shaping safety standards and regulatory attitudes toward very-low-calorie diets for decades.	United States
1979	Research	Health (immune system)	Helpful	Rodent	A study by immunologist R.H. Weindruch and colleagues reports that controlled dietary restriction—undernutrition without malnutrition—slows aging and preserves immune function in mice. Lifelong restriction or restriction begun in midlife produces "younger" immune systems, with improved mitogen responses and lymphocyte reactions. Effects vary by mouse strain and timing. Energy restriction alone can reproduce immune benefits without protein deficiency.	United States
1980	Research	Organ level effect (white adipose tissue)	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Study by Helen A. Bertrand et al. in rats reports that, under calorie restriction, the loss of white adipose tissue is disproportionately large relative to overall body weight reduction. The finding is significant because researchers at this time are attempting to understand the physiological mechanisms through which calorie restriction extends lifespan — whether the effect is mediated by reduced body fat, reduced metabolic rate, or some other factor. The disproportionate loss of adipose tissue under CR raises the possibility that changes in fat mass and fat cell number, rather than caloric intake per se, may be central mediators of the lifespan effect.	United States
1980	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Rodent (Mus musculus)	Study by K.E. Cheney and colleagues, working in Roy Walford's laboratory at UCLA, reports that calorie restriction significantly decreases the mortality rate in C57BL/6J house mice. The study is part of a broader program by Walford and collaborators to systematically extend and replicate McCay's foundational calorie restriction findings across mouse strains and experimental conditions, with the goal of establishing whether CR's lifespan effects are robust and generalizable. The results support the generalizability of CR-induced lifespan extension and contribute to Walford's growing case for its potential relevance to humans.	United States (University of California, Los Angeles)
1982	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Study by Richard Weindruch and Roy Walford in 12- to 13-month-old mice using nutrient-enriched diets in accordance with the concept of "undernutrition without malnutrition" results in the mice on the restricted diet averaging 10 to 20 percent increases in mean and maximum survival times compared to the control mice. The study is significant for demonstrating that calorie restriction initiated in middle age — rather than from weaning — can still meaningfully extend lifespan, addressing a practical concern about whether CR must begin early in life to be effective. The finding would encourage speculation about the feasibility of CR as a human intervention, and would be followed by Walford's influential popular books advocating calorie restriction for humans.	United States
1984	Policy	Illness	Harmful	Human	The United States FDA starts requiring that very-low-calorie diets providing fewer than 400 calories a day carry a warning that they can cause serious illness and need to be followed under medical supervision. The regulation represents the first formal government acknowledgment of the safety risks associated with extreme calorie restriction, and sets a precedent for subsequent clinical guidelines in other countries. Thirty years later, the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) would issue similar guidance recommending that very-low-calorie diets be used only under medical supervision and for no more than 12 weeks.	United States
1984	Literature	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Human	Roy Walford publishes Maximum Life Span a book on lifespan determination advocating calorie restriction.	United States
1984	Research	Organ level effect (bone)	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Research by Kalu et al. in rats concludes that calorie restriction completely prevents the senile bone loss recorded in ad libitum rats with femur strength to body weight ratios greater than in ad libitum.	United States (University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio)
1986	Literature	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Human	Richard Weindruch and Roy Walford publish The Retardation of Aging and Disease by Dietary Restriction, an influential and comprehensive encyclopedia of calorie restriction studies that would encourage many scientists to become interested in, and to investigate, calorie restriction and its impact on aging.	United States
1986	Literature	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Human	Roy Walford publishes The 120-Year Diet: How to Double Your Vital Years, advocating the use of calorie restriction to increase human longevity.	United States
1987	Research	Behavior (physical activity)	Helpful	Rodent	Study by D.E. Harrison and J.R. Archer reports that many rodents respond to calorie restriction by increasing their levels of physical activity. The finding complicates the interpretation of CR's lifespan effects, raising the question of whether some benefits attributed to reduced caloric intake are actually mediated by increased activity levels. It would also contribute to later debates about whether CR's metabolic adaptations — including reduced body temperature and resting metabolic rate — are accompanied by behavioral compensations that partially offset the energetic deficit.	United States
1988	Literature	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Human	Roy Walford and Richard Weindruch publish The Retardation of Aging and Disease by Dietary Restriction.	United States
1991–1993	Diet introduction	Nutrient adequacy	Helpful	Human	Roy Walford's compiled data during his participation in Biosphere 2 is used to develop the CRON-diet, jointly with Lisa Walford and Brian M. Delaney. It consists of a diet low in fat and in calories but "nutrient-dense". Walford subsequently publishes the physiological results from the Biosphere 2 experiment, reporting significant reductions in blood glucose, cholesterol, and blood pressure in the eight participants — providing rare controlled human data on CR's metabolic effects and helping lay the groundwork for the larger CALERIE human trials that would begin in the 2000s.	United States
1993	Research	Hepatic enzyme modulation	N/A	Rodent (rat)	Research by Alterman et al. in rats shows that calorie restriction has profound effects on the hepatic microsomal levels and activities of cytochrome P-450s, a superfamily of enzymes containing heme as a cofactor that functions as monooxygenases. The study is motivated by the observation that calorie restriction alters the metabolism of many drugs and chemical carcinogens, and that age-related changes in drug metabolism are a significant clinical concern. Understanding how CR modulates cytochrome P-450 activity is important for predicting how calorie-restricted animals — and potentially humans — process pharmaceuticals and environmental toxins, with implications for both toxicology and the study of CR's cancer-preventive effects.	United States (Texas A&M University)
1994	Organization	Lifespan and mortality	Helpful	Human	The Calorie Restriction Society is founded. This organization sponsors conferences, funds anti-aging research, and offers practical guidance to its members on implementing calorie restriction safely. It would go on to provide a community for self-experimenting CR practitioners whose health data would later be drawn upon in observational studies, and would collaborate with researchers investigating the physiological effects of long-term voluntary calorie restriction in humans.	United States
1994	Research	Cancer suppression	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Study by Peter P. Fu and colleagues shows that caloric restriction profoundly inhibits liver-tumor formation after initiation by 6-nitrochrysene in male mice.	United States (National Center for Toxicological Research, Arkansas)
1994	Research	Reduced oxidative stress	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Study by R.S. Sohal and colleagues in mice reports that isolated mitochondria from subjects under calorie restriction show reductions in superoxide radical production. The finding provides early experimental support for the oxidative stress theory of aging as applied to calorie restriction — the hypothesis that CR extends lifespan partly by reducing the rate of mitochondrial free radical production and consequent oxidative damage to cellular components. This mechanistic link between CR, mitochondrial function, and aging would become one of the most investigated pathways in the field through the 1990s and 2000s.	United States (Southern Methodist University, Dallas)
1995	Research	Cognitive impairment	Neutral	N/A	Study by M.W. Green et al. concludes that short-term food deprivation has little or no detrimental effect on cognitive function, also indicating that "deficits in cognitive function found to be associated with spontaneous dieting are unlikely to be due primarily to any direct physiological or nutritional effects of food deprivation".	United Kingdom (Institute of Food Research, Reading, Berkshire)
1995	Literature	Longevity	Helpful	Human	Roy Walford publishes The Anti-Aging Plan, which promotes calorie restriction in humans.	United States
1995	Research	Reduced adipokine signaling	Harmful	Rodent (mouse)	Study by Robert C. Frederich and colleagues in mice shows that the loss of body fat during calorie restriction results in profound reductions in circulating levels of several adipokines, including leptin.	United States (Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts)
1996	Research	Metabolic effect (oxidative stress)	Helpful	Rodent	Study by American physiologist Byung Pal Yu concludes that calorie restriction in mice reduces oxidative stress, contributing to a growing body of evidence linking CR to reduced free radical damage as a mechanism of lifespan extension.	United States (University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio)
1997	Research	Health (cancer)	Helpful	Rodent	Study by toxicologists Ronald W. Hart and Angelo Turturro in rodents reports that calorie restriction reduces the susceptibility to cancer.	United States (National Center for Toxicological Research, Jefferson, Arkansas)
1997	Research	Enhanced intestinal nutrient absorption	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Study by Casirola et al. in mice reports that intestinal nutrient uptake in calorie-restricted animals is significantly higher for D-sugars, L-amino acids, and L-glucose than in same-age ad libitum animals. The finding addresses a practical question raised by calorie restriction research: if animals consume less food, how do they avoid nutritional deficiencies? The enhanced absorptive capacity of the gut under CR suggests a compensatory adaptation that allows restricted animals to extract more nutrients per unit of food consumed, helping explain how the "undernutrition without malnutrition" principle central to CR research is physiologically achieved.	United States (University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey)
1997	Research	Organ level effect (muscle)	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Study by Aspnes et al. in mice reports that calorie restriction has a protective effect against sarcopenic muscle loss — the age-related decline in skeletal muscle mass and function. Sarcopenia is a major contributor to frailty and loss of independence in aging, and at this time researchers are actively investigating whether CR's lifespan-extending effects are accompanied by preservation of functional capacity. The finding that CR reduces muscle fiber loss and mitochondrial abnormalities in aged muscle suggests that its benefits extend beyond mere survival to include maintenance of physical function, strengthening the case for CR as a broad anti-aging intervention.	United States (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
1998	Research	Health (cancer)	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Study by T.J. Spady et al. shows that dietary energy restriction abolishes development of prolactin-producing pituitary tumors in rats treated with 17 beta-estradiol.	United States (University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha)
1998	Concept development				The term caloric restriction mimetic is coined by Lane, Ingram, and Roth of the National Institute on Aging in a seminal paper in the Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine, the forerunner of Rejuvenation Research. The concept — that drugs or compounds might replicate the metabolic and longevity effects of calorie restriction without requiring reduced food intake — would prove enormously influential, spawning a research program that continues into the 2020s. Compounds investigated as potential CR mimetics would include resveratrol, rapamycin, and metformin, with rapamycin in particular going on to extend lifespan in mice in landmark studies published in 2009.	United States (National Institute on Aging, Maryland)
1998	Research	Physiological adaptations	Helpful	Human	Physician and researcher R.B. Verdery and pathologist Roy Walford report that the two years of involuntary calorie restriction experienced by the eight crew members of Biosphere 2 produced significant reductions in plasma total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides, alongside increases in HDL cholesterol. The changes parallel lipid adaptations observed in calorie-restricted rodents and monkeys, providing early human evidence that CR-associated cardiometabolic effects seen in animal models may translate to humans.	United States
1998	Research	Metabolic effect (oxidative stress)	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Study by M.V. Aksenova and colleagues in rats concludes that calorie restriction relieves age-associated levels of oxidative stress and lessens protein damage in the brain.	United States (University of Kentucky)
1998	Research	Improved insulin sensitivity	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Research by Barzilai et al. in rats shows that calorie restriction for 18 months restores hepatic insulin sensitivity to the same levels observed in young rats (4 months). Aging is accompanied by a marked increase in hepatic resistance to the action of insulin. The finding is significant because it demonstrates that a major age-related metabolic impairment is not only slowed but actually reversed by CR, strengthening the case that calorie restriction acts on fundamental aging processes rather than merely slowing disease progression. It would contribute to growing interest in insulin/IGF-1 signaling as a conserved pathway through which CR and related interventions modulate aging across species.	United States (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York)
1999	Research	Delayed cancer progression	Neutral	Rodent (mouse)	A mouse study by T.D. Pugh and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin Institute on Aging finds that calorie restriction from 12 months increases the incidence of plasma cell neoplasm (66% vs. 41% in controls). However, tumor-bearing mice live longer and fewer die with cancer, suggesting calorie restriction slows the promotion or progression of existing lymphoid cancers.	United States (Institute on Aging, University of Wisconsin–Madison)
1999	Research	Reduced mortality	Helpful	Monkey	Study by gerontologist George S. Roth and colleagues at the National Institute on Aging in monkeys suggests that mortality is reduced in subjects on calorie restriction, as part of the long-running NIA primate calorie restriction study begun in the late 1980s.	United States (National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, Maryland)
2000	Literature	Longevity enhancement	Helpful	Human	R.L. Walford publishes Beyond the 120-Year Diet: How to Double Your Vital Years, which argues that longevity can be significantly increased by a diet that contains all the required nutrients but about a third fewer calories.	United States
2000	Research	Longevity (evolutionary theory)	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Daryl P. Shanley and Thomas B.L. Kirkwood at the University of Newcastle publish a mathematical life-history analysis proposing that the lifespan-extending effect of calorie restriction is an evolutionary adaptation rooted in the disposable soma theory: during food shortage, resources are diverted away from reproduction and toward somatic maintenance, thereby increasing the organism's chance of survival until conditions improve. Using a state-dependent model based on empirical data from the house mouse, they show this reallocation is evolutionarily advantageous under fluctuating food availability, and provide a theoretical basis for evaluating whether CR's life-extending effects might apply to other species, including humans. The paper is among the most influential applications of evolutionary life-history theory to the CR phenomenon, linking evolutionary biology, demography, and gerontology in a unified quantitative framework.	United Kingdom (University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne)
2000	Research	Enhanced autophagy	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Study by G. Cavallini and colleagues in rats reports that calorie restriction prevents the age-dependent decline of autophagic proteolysis and improves the sensitivity of liver cells to stimulation of lysosomal degradation. The finding connects calorie restriction to the regulation of autophagy — the cellular process by which damaged proteins and organelles are degraded and recycled — at a time when autophagy's role in aging is only beginning to be appreciated. The result would gain greater significance in subsequent years as autophagy emerged as a central mechanism linking nutrient sensing, cellular maintenance, and longevity, with CR-induced autophagy becoming a major research focus in the 2000s and 2010s.	Italy (Dipartimento di Patologia sperimentale, Biotecnologie mediche, Infettivologia e Epidemiologia, Pisa)
2000	Research	Health (disease)	Helpful	Monkey	Study by physician A. Black and colleagues at the National Institute on Aging in monkeys suggests that morbidity, in particular neoplastic disease, is reduced in subjects on calorie restriction.	United States
2001	Research	Organ level effect (bone)	Harmful	Monkey	Study by Black et al. reports that short-term (1 year) calorie restriction in young (4-year-old) male monkeys delays skeletal maturation and reduces bone mass, whereas adult-onset calorie restriction (19-year-old subjects) has no significant effect on bone mass compared with control male monkeys.	United States (Gerontology Research Center, National Institute on Aging, Baltimore)
2001	Research	Organ level effect (lungs)	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Research by N.M. Elsayed in rodents reports that oxidative protection of the lung tissue is enhanced by calorie restriction and rats under CR exposed to ozone show lowered oxidative damage and elevated survivability.	United States (Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, D.C.)
2001	Research	Health (obesity)	Helpful	Human	A review by Finnish physicians P. Mustajoki and T. Pekkarinen finds that the very-low-calorie diet in the treatment of obesity has no serious harmful effect when done under medical supervision, for periods of 8–16 weeks with an average weight loss of 1.5–2.5 kg/week.	Finland (Peijas Hospital, Department of Medicine, Vantaa)
2001	Research	Behavior (reproduction)	Harmful	Rodent	Research by Caprio et al. in rodents reports that when female animals are under calorie restriction their fertility is reduced, presumably as a mechanism to prevent them becoming pregnant at a time when insufficient resources are available to support a reproductive event.	Italy (Universita’ di Tor Vergata, Università La Sapienza)
2002	Research	Behavior (hunger)	Neutral	Human	Study by Hansen et al. reports that circulating levels of ghrelin, an orexigenic hormone secreted by the stomach, are increased in the plasma during diet-induced weight loss in obese humans, suggesting that ghrelin may contribute to the sustained appetite associated with calorie restriction.	Denmark (Aarhus University Hospital), Japan (National Cardiovascular Center Research Institute, Osaka)
2002	Research	Longevity	Helpful	Multiple species	According to a paper by gerontologist Mark A. Lane and colleagues at the National Institute on Aging, there are more than 2,000 animal studies on calorie restriction showing dramatic results across many different species, which provide good evidence that restricting calories slows down aging and can extend youthfulness.	United States
2003	Research	Lifespan and mortality	Harmful	Rodent	Research in rodents by pharmacologist Michael J. Forster and colleagues shows that the effect of calorie restriction may be negative if the restriction is started very late in life.	United States (Institute for Aging and Alzheimer's Disease Research, University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth)
2003	Research	Endocrine effect (ghrelin)	Neutral	Rodent (rat)	Research by Barazzoni et al. in rats concludes that during calorie restriction, levels of ghrelin — a hormone produced by the stomach that stimulates appetite — are increased, but that this rise is blunted in animals with high circulating leptin levels. The study is motivated by growing interest in understanding why calorie-restricted animals and humans experience persistent hunger, and how the endocrine system adapts to reduced food intake. The finding that hyperleptinemia suppresses the ghrelin response to CR adds nuance to the emerging picture of hormonal regulation of appetite during food restriction, with implications for understanding why CR is difficult to sustain in practice.	Italy (Dipartimento di Scienze Cliniche, Morfologiche e Tecnologiche, Clinica Medica, Trieste)
2003	Research	Longevity	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Research by German endocrinologist Matthias Blüher and colleagues at Harvard Medical School in mice suggests that reduced fat mass without calorie restriction can be associated with increased longevity, by knocking out the insulin receptor specifically in adipose tissue.	United States (Harvard Medical School, Boston)
2003	Research	Health (cancer)	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	A systematic metaanalysis by Dirx et al. of 14 studies in mice suggests that subjects on calorie restriction develop between 41% and 69% less mammary tumors than the control groups.	Netherlands (Maastricht University)
2003	Research	Organ level effect (liver)	Harmful	Rodent (rat)	Study by U.M. Apte reports that rats under calorie restriction show increased susceptibility to liver damage induced by the hepatotoxicant thioacetamide.	United States
2003	Research	Endocrine effect (adiponectin)	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Study by Combs et al. in mice reports that calorie restriction increases circulating levels of adiponectin, an adipose-derived hormone with insulin-sensitizing and anti-inflammatory properties. The study is motivated by the observation that calorie restriction improves insulin sensitivity and reduces inflammation — effects that mirror those of adiponectin — raising the question of whether adiponectin mediates some of CR's metabolic benefits. The finding positions adiponectin as a potential hormonal link between reduced caloric intake and improved metabolic health, and contributes to growing interest in the endocrine functions of adipose tissue as a mediator of CR's effects.	United States (Albert Einstein College of Medicine)
2004	Research	Health (immune system)	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Research by nutritional immunologist Christopher A. Jolly shows that calorie restriction delays thymic involution — the age-related shrinkage of the thymus gland that reduces immune competence — in mice.	United States (The University of Texas at Austin)
2005	Research	Health (cancer)	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Study by Stewart and colleagues in mice shows that skin cancer promotion is inhibited by calorie restriction.	United States (Iowa State University)
2005	Research	Organ level effect (skin)	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Research by Bhattacharyya et al. in rats concludes that calorie restriction retards age-related changes in the skin, with increased collagen and elastic fibers, fibroblasts, and capillaries found in skin samples from the subjects.	United States (University of Illinois at Chicago)
2005	Research	Endocrine effect (insulin)	Neutral	Rodent (mouse)	Research by Argentino et al. in mice reports that calorie restriction reduces circulating levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 and insulin (and glucose).	Argentina (Instituto de Química y Fisicoquímica Biológicas (UBA-CONICET), Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica, Buenos Aires)
2005	Research	Metabolic effect (mitochondrial biogenesis)	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Study by Enzo Nisoli and colleagues reports that calorie restriction at 30% for 3 months results in mitochondrial biogenesis in the brain, heart, liver, and particularly the adipose tissue of mice. The finding provides a mechanistic link between CR and improved mitochondrial function, suggesting that CR does not merely reduce mitochondrial damage — as the oxidative stress hypothesis had emphasized — but actively stimulates the production of new mitochondria. This distinction would prove important for understanding how CR improves energy metabolism and tissue function with age, and would contribute to growing interest in mitochondrial biogenesis as a therapeutic target in aging.	Italy, United Kingdom
2006	Research	Behavior (cognitive effects)	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Research by Martin et al. reports evidence suggesting that calorie restriction and intermittent fasting may benefit neurons by impinging upon fundamental metabolic and cellular signaling pathways that regulate life-span.	United States
2006	Research	Behavior (reproduction)	Harmful	Rabbit	Study by Brecchia et al. reports that, in female rabbits, complete food deprivation for 24 and 48 hours results in a decline in fertility of 23.9 and 21.4% respectively, matched by major disturbances in the endocrine axis linked to reproduction.	Italy
2007	Research	Metabolic effect (oxidative stress)	Helpful	Rodent (rat)	Study by Cenk Aydin et al. in rats concludes that subjects on calorie restriction are protected against oxidative stress induced by swimming exercise in the liver, heart, and kidney. Two years later, the researchers would discover the same effects in the brain and lungs.	Turkey (Uludag University, Bursa)
2007	Research	Behavior (cognitive effects)	Neutral	Rodent (rat)	Research by Martin et al. in rats reports no consistent pattern of verbal memory, visual retention/memory, or attention/concentration deficits over 6 months, and the energy deficit from calorie restriction or exercise is not significantly associated with cognitive test performance.	United States
2007	Research	Organ level effect (alimentary tract)	Harmful	Rodent (mouse)	Study by immunologist Hyunwon Yang and colleagues in mice reports what is perhaps the most conspicuous change in the morphology of the alimentary tract under calorie restriction, which is the hypertrophy of the stomach observed in subjects, accompanied by enhanced ghrelin levels.	United States (Louisiana State University System)
2007	Research	Longevity	Helpful	Human	Study by Speakman and Hambly calculates that if the lifespan effects observed in rodents translate faithfully to humans, then a 48-year-old engaging in 30% calorie restriction for 30 years, until the current mean life expectancy of 78, might expect to live only an extra 2.8 years because of the CR effect.	United Kingdom
2007	Research	Organ level effect (kidney)	Helpful	Rodent	Research by Chen et al. in rodents concludes that calorie restriction attenuates increased susceptibility to kidney injury in old subjects.	United States (Texas A&M Health Science Center)
2008	Research	Health (cancer)	Helpful	Rodent (mouse)	Study by Wheatley et al. in mice suggests that although a low calorie diet does not induce weight loss, it may reduce colon cancer risk by lowering serum IGF-I levels.	United States (University of Texas at Austin)
2008	Research	Organ level effect (bone)	Harmful	Rodent (rat)	Research by Baek et al. in rats concludes that moderate caloric restriction may cause bone loss at susceptible bone sites to a similar degree as does the unloading effect of microgravity in astronauts.	United States
2008	Research	Organ level effect (muscle)	Helpful	Non-human primate	Study by physiologist R.J. Colman and colleagues at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center reports that calorie restriction has a protective effect against sarcopenic muscle loss in rhesus monkeys, extending to non-human primates a finding previously established in rodents.	United States (Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
2010	Review/Meta-analysis	Longevity and aging	Helpful	Model organism	A landmark historical and mechanistic review by McDonald and Ramsey summarizes 75 years of calorie restriction research, consolidating evidence for lifespan extension and healthspan benefits while outlining translational challenges for humans.	United States
2011	Clinical research	Metabolic and cardiovascular health	Helpful	Human	Results from the CALERIE Phase 1 trials show that 6–12 months of calorie restriction improves insulin sensitivity, lipid profiles, and cardiometabolic risk factors in non-obese humans, providing early controlled human evidence of physiological benefits.	United States
2011	Review	Neuroprotection / stroke mitigation	Helpful	Animal models (primarily rodents)	A review examines how calorie restriction and intermittent fasting may protect against ischemic stroke–related brain injury. Animal studies show dietary energy restriction promotes neuroprotection and reduces age-related diseases. Proposed mechanisms include neurotrophic factors, antioxidant enzymes, metabolic regulators, and anti-inflammatory pathways that may limit neuronal damage.	International
2012	Clinical research	Metabolic adaptation / energy expenditure	Helpful	Human	CALERIE Phase 2 results demonstrate that two years of sustained calorie restriction lowers resting metabolic rate beyond what is expected from weight loss alone, suggesting metabolic adaptation consistent with slowed aging processes.	United States
2014	Recommendation		Harmful		According to the NICE 2014 guidelines, the routine use of very-low-calorie diets is not recommended due to safety concerns, but this approach can be used under medical supervision if there is a clinical rationale for rapid weight loss in obese individuals, as part of a "multi-component weight management strategy" with continuous support and for a maximum of 12 weeks.	United Kingdom
2017	Research	Biological aging rate	Helpful	Human	Using data from the CALERIE trial, researchers test whether biomarkers detect effects of caloric restriction on human aging. In 220 healthy adults followed for two years, caloric restriction significantly slows biological aging compared with controls, independent of weight loss, supporting biomarkers as outcomes in geroprotector trials.	United States
2018	Research	Longevity extension/brain integrity	Helpful/harmful	Grey mouse lemur	Researchers find that caloric restriction increases lifespan but affects brain integrity in grey mouse lemur primates.	France
2018	Research	Biological aging rate	Helpful	Human	Analysis of the CALERIE randomized trial reports that moderate calorie restriction is associated with a slower rate of biological aging as measured by a composite biomarker-based “pace of aging” approach. This study is frequently cited as early human evidence linking CR to aging-rate biomarkers.	United States
2022	Research	Weight loss/cardiometabolic risk factors	Neutral	Human	A 12-month randomized trial in Guangzhou assigns 139 adults with obesity to calorie restriction alone or calorie restriction plus time-restricted eating (8 a.m.–4 p.m.). Weight loss is −8.0 kg with time restriction and −6.3 kg with calorie restriction alone, a non-significant difference. Waist, body fat, visceral fat, blood pressure, glucose, lipids, and adverse events are similar between groups.	China
2022	Research	Cardiometabolic risk reduction	Helpful	Human	A secondary analysis of the 2-year CALERIE trial finds that ~12% calorie restriction in healthy, non-obese adults lowers cardiometabolic risk markers. NMR biomarkers show reductions in apolipoprotein B, GlycA inflammation, insulin resistance, and diabetes risk, driven by improved lipoprotein profiles and lower branched-chain amino acids, with stronger effects in men and participants with higher baseline BMI.	United States
2023	Research	Biological aging (epigenetics)	Helpful/neutral	Human	DNA methylation analyses of CALERIE report that calorie restriction slows the “pace of aging” (DunedinPACE) but shows limited or no significant change across several epigenetic clock age estimates, suggesting modest, measure-dependent effects in humans.	United States
2023	Research	Weight loss (intermittent fasting vs CR)	Neutral	Human	A randomized clinical trial tests intermittent fasting plus early time-restricted eating (iTRE) against daily calorie restriction, contributing to the evidence base comparing CR-style continuous restriction with structured intermittent restriction approaches.	United States
2024	Research	Molecular biomarker (telomere length)	Mixed	Human	CALERIE-2 telomere analyses report mixed evidence for effects of two-year moderate calorie restriction on telomere length dynamics, illustrating biomarker-specific complexity in human CR outcomes.	United States
2024	Resource	Data/biobank	Neutral	Human	The CALERIE Genomic Data Resource is published, providing curated trial-linked genomic/omics resources intended to accelerate mechanistic and geroscience research on calorie restriction in humans.	United States
2025	Research	Weight loss	Helpful	Human	A randomized trial reports that a “4:3” intermittent fasting regimen (three nonconsecutive restricted-intake days per week) produces modestly greater weight loss than daily calorie restriction in a 12-month behavioral program, highlighting an adherence-relevant alternative implementation of calorie restriction.	United States (University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus)

Numerical and visual data

Mentions on Google Scholar

Year	calorie restriction
1900	30
1910	85
1920	160
1930	228
1940	242
1950	473
1960	741
1970	1,320
1980	2,540
1990	3,860
2000	7,330
2010	16,100
2020	23,900

Google Trends

The chart below shows Google Trends data for Calorie restriction (search term), from January 2004 to Feruary 2026, when the screenshot was taken. Interest is also ranked by country and displayed on world map.

Google Ngram Viewer

The comparative chart below shows Google Ngram Viewer data for calorie restriction and caloric restriction, from 1900 to 2019.

Wikipedia Views

The chart below shows pageviews of the English Wikipedia article Calorie restriction, from July 2015 to February 2026.

Meta information on the timeline

How the timeline was built

The initial version of the timeline was written by User:Sebastian.

Funding information for this timeline is available.

Feedback and comments

Feedback for the timeline can be provided at the following places:

• FIXME

What the timeline is still missing

• Minnesota Starvation Experiment
• Fluid restriction diet
• Maybe more on how intermittent fasting and calorie restriction relate?
• Relationship between calorie restriction and hormesis

Category:Diets

See also

• Timeline of weight loss
• Timeline of fats
• Timeline of senescence research
• Timeline of malnutrition
• Timeline of vegetarianism and veganism