Chronic caloric restriction, while effective for certain health markers, carries inherent problems and is less practical than a fasting-mimicking approach.

“I was a student of Roy Walford back in the early '90s, and it was...I mean, being around calorie-restricted people, it was very clear to me that this was going to have problems, but it was also very clear that this was going to have huge effects on health.”

Steve Austad concludes that in the context of the monkey studies, the severity of the diet determines the level of health benefits observed from caloric restriction.

“my conclusion from that study is in a still somewhat contrived way i think what we learned is the worse the diet the more beneficial the caloric restriction the better the diet the less of an impact caloric restriction has”