Researchers have previously reported that caloric restriction may help prolong the lifespan of healthy individuals (and by individuals I mean the work to date has been done in rodents and non-human primates and by caloric restriction I mean a miserable twigs and berries and not a chocolate in sight diet- but I digress). One of the mechanisms proposed to contribute to the anti-aging effects of caloric restriction is the reduction of the core body temperature. Recently, in a bid to be clever and get around the whole dieting regime, a research group at the Scripps Institute in California has produced a genetically modified mouse (pdf of research article and commentary article below) that results in a core body temperature reduced by 0.3-0.5 degrees celsius. With the same caloric intake, the modified mice went on to have a 12-20% longer lifespan than their littermate control partners. While this is equivalent to 89-112 days in the life of a mouse, a comparable percentage increase in the human life span is 7-8 years. Now the body is very good at keeping the core temperature at 37 so I may need a few subjects for a little brain manipulation to see how well this research crosses the species divide- any volunteers?
conti-et-al-science-2006_reduced-body-temp-increased-life-span.pdf
Let me get this straight. You wish to induce in me a miserable and permanent shiver and by way of compensation you offer a prolonged term? This is almost as appealing as life insurance.
I’m not sure you do have it straight–I suspect the shiver response happens when your body temperature is below what it thinks is normal. If “normal” is shifted lower a few degrees it wouldn’t mean you shiver all the time, you’d just shiver when your temp got below the new lower normal temp.