And let’s move on to the study on mice that is making the rounds of the earthy world with titles like: ” Scientists have discovered that the diet of longevity is the opposite of the Paleo diet “, or “Eating less protein protects us from old age”. What happened? It happened that a group of researchers carried out a study on mice to understand if the so-called FGF21, renamed the hormone of youth, changes by varying the diet: they thus saw that this hormone grows to very high levels when a low-protein diet is associated with a high consumption of carbohydrates.

However, the same researchers admit that previous research has made the longevity hormone question controversial , and that intermittent fasting, overeating, and ketogenic diets, for example, have also caused a similar hormonal response. Since the ketogenic diet is never low in protein, but at the norm-protein limit, the study carried out on a small group of laboratory mice does not add much, but it certainly does not take away from the previous confusion.

Generic recommendations based on these studies are always to be avoided : a high-carbohydrate, low-protein diet could be a bread-and-honey diet, as far as we know. That is: these two parameters are not sufficient to outline a healthy diet.
Professor Duane Mellor, spokesman for the Dieticians Association of Australia (the study is Australian), recommends caution, but also says that the people of Okinawa and Sardinians have a diet high in carbohydrates and low in protein . And they are among the longest-lived peoples on Earth. Now: the time has come for the Sardinians to take to the streets to protest , being used as an example