Longevity, Aging, and Caloric Restriction: Clive Maine McCay and the Construction of a Multidisciplinary Research Program

Abstract

Since the 1930s scientists from fields such as biochemistry, pathology, immunology, genetics, neuroscience, and nutrition have studied the relation of dietary caloric intake to longevity and aging. This paper discusses how Clive Maine McCay, a professor of animal husbandry at Cornell University, began his investigation of the topic and promoted it as a productive research program in the multidisciplinary science of gerontology. Initially, McCay observed the effect of reduced-calorie diets on life span and senescence while pursuing his nutrition research in the context of animal husbandry and agriculture. But when he received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and started to participate in the establishment of gerontology during the 1930s, the scope of his research was considerably expanded beyond his original disciplinary domain. It became a multidisciplinary research program that attracted scholars from a variety of scientific and medical disciplines. This paper argues that through this expansion McCay's research created a means of maintaining cooperation among the diverse and heterogeneous academic fields constituting gerontology.

Dietary restriction in rats and mice: A meta-analysis and review of the evidence for genotype-dependent effects on lifespan

“…Some of the weakest effects of DR in rats were reported in a study by Clive McCay and colleagues (McCay et al, 1935), which ironically, has frequently been cited as the earliest demonstration of lifespan extension by DR in laboratory animals. An interesting feature of this work is that experiments were performed using “random-bred” rats that had not been systematically inbred (Park, 2010). Additionally, compared to most present-day rodent colonies, McCay's rats had been maintained in the laboratory for fewer generations.…”

Combined metformin and resveratrol confers protection against UVC-induced DNA damage in A549 lung cancer cells via modulation of cell cycle checkpoints and DNA repair

“…These results suggest that metformin and resveratrol, previously regarded as prime candidates for treating and preventing type II diabetes (12,13) and coronary heart disease (25)(26)(27)(28), may offer the potential to be repositioned as candidate anti-aging drugs via the modulation of intrinsic aging factors. Indeed, the interest in resveratrol and metformin as gero-active chemicals may have started much earlier stemming from efforts to identify and develop caloric restriction mimetics (CRMs) based on the longstanding observation of McCay in the 1930s that a reduction in caloric intake retarded aging and extended median and maximal life span (55,56). Metformin, a biguanide currently considered the primary stay of management for diabetes, acts as a CRM in whole organisms by a multitude of mechanisms including at the metabolic level, the facilitation of fatty acid oxidation and glucose uptake in peripheral tissues as well as the suppression of hepatic gluconeogenesis.…”

Neuroimaging Biomarkers of mTOR Inhibition on Vascular and Metabolic Functions in Aging Brain and Alzheimer’s Disease

“…In the early 1930s, Clive McCay demonstrated that restricting calorie intake without malnutrition can prolong both the mean and maximal lifespan in rats when compared to animals on ad libitum diet (AL; free eating) ( McCay et al, 1989 ; Park, 2010 ). Since then, CR is perhaps the most studied anti-aging manipulation within a broad range of species ( Colman et al, 2009 ; Choi et al, 2011 ; Rahat et al, 2011 ).…”