I've mentioned this many times, but within the last week, I've come across two examples of life-long studies, which are very rare now.  Mostly, the studies you hear about determine if a "marker" is raised or lowered by something, such as a food item.  In the case of LDL, it's largely irrelevant, because they don't determine if the LDL is oxidized, and only oxidized LDL is potentially dangerous.

 

On CNN's TV show, "Chasing Life," an experiment on rats was mentioned.  Some rats were given growth hormone and some were not.  The ones that were lived shorter lives.  Several days later, I came across the following report:

 

QUOTE:  ...these types of life-long studies can help us understand human diseases and ageing as well, and that is the added bonus of being able to do long-term non-invasive metabolic monitoring."  The researchers suggest that part of the healthier metabolic profiles of dogs on a restricted diet is related to their changed gut microbial activity, which in turn contributes to their generally improved health and longer lifespan. However, they also found that the overall effects of ageing on restricted and non-restricted animals exerted a greater effect on the metabolic profile than dietary restriction. This in itself is interesting as the lifelong metabolic trajectories of large animals had never been studied in this detail before and such information might be of relevance to ageing humans and their diseases...  UNQUOTE.

 

Source:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070419160140.htm