AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CRAN ARCHIVES



    This directory contains monthly archives of postings to a 

ListServer group known as CRAN. CRAN is an abbreviation for Caloric

Restriction with Adequate Nutrition -- a practice adapted from the 

writings and research of Dr. Roy Walford, among others. CRAN 

experiments on mice and other animals have decisively demonstated

that this technique can extend maximum lifespan (over 50% with 

over 50% restriction) -- and YOUTH is extended. "Adequate" in

this context means "adequate to prevent deficiency disease",

not "adequate for optimal life-extension" or "adequate to win 

the Mr./Ms. WORLD contest", etc.                 



      CRAN is also an effective means of reducing the incidence of 

cardiovascular disease, cancer, and adult-onset diabetes, the three

non-infectious diseases that cause most deaths in industrialized

societies. It has now been established that the thinnest people are 

the healthiest, if the effect of smoking and undisclosed wasting 

disease is eliminated [NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE 333:686-692

(1995)]. The high death rate among victims of anorexia nervosa is 

probably due to excessively rapid weight loss combined with inadequate

nutrition. 



      Although the strongest scientific evidence exists for the

life-extending properties of CRAN, there is scientific evidence for the

life-extending properties of supplements. Antioxidants have been shown to

extend average lifespan, but not maximum lifespan. Deprenyl and a number

of other supplements have extended the maximum lifespan of rodents in some

experiments. (See LIFE SCIENCES 45:525-531 (1989), LIFE SCIENCES

47:415-420 (1990) and AGE 15:133 (1992)]). Too few experiments of this

nature have been performed.



    I (Ben Best) am the administrator of this list. I not only

practice CRAN, but I take a  variety of supplements which I believe

may contribute to life extension by mechanisms which are independent

of, but contributory to the life extension achieved by CRAN. I hope

that the CRAN list will be accepting of a range of scientific views,

but will (at the same time) not be at all attractive to those who

wish to post anti-scientific drivel or vacuous verbiage that wastes

our time & bandwidth. 



     In an effort to achieve these ends, I have implemented the 

following policy:



         If, within the space of a week,  I receive 3 votes from CRAN

subscribers that some other CRAN subscriber should be removed from the 

CRAN list I will publish a notice to the list that the named offending

subscriber has been nominated for removal. If, within the space of the 

following week, I receive 10 votes from CRAN subscribers to remove the 

nominated subscriber from the list I will remove that subscriber and 

announce that fact to everyone. All votes become invalid one week following 

their posting. Votes should be sent directly to me (benbest@benbest.com). 

Any votes posted to the CRAN list itself will be invalid.



     Note that this policy is not "majority rule", it is sensitive to a 

minority with strong feelings against the hostility or boringness of some 

subscriber. Since this is an experiment, I will be autocratic about 

implementing it. If I decide that it is too much of an administrative hassle 

or I don't like the way it is working I will modify or discontinue it. 



     My hope is that the mere existence of the policy will give people 

pause for thought before posting something that might be nasty or a waste

of bandwidth. With luck, it will never be implemented. The policy is not

intended to restrain criticism, but I would hope criticism would be 

directed at concepts or information rather than at personalities. Also,

sometimes the *way* you "tell the truth" can make a big difference in 

how your message is conveyed.



     For more information about me, about CRAN and about other 

life-extension subjects, my website at www.benbest.com is a good 

place to start.



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