Why would starving monkeys want to live longer?
Imagine the horror of eating, sleeping, relieving yourself and sitting with nothing to do in the same tiny room for decades. You can never go outside and feel the sun on your skin or smell the fragrance of blooming flowers. Your days are drained of color, scent and almost every other form of sensory stimulation. Imagine, too, that you are never fed quite enough and feel constant hunger pangs. Worse, you are deprived of the one thing that might bring you some small comfort—the companionship of another living being. This is what life is like for the dozens of rhesus monkeys who are the subject of a much-hyped caloric-restriction experiment at the University of WisconsinMadison (UW). Caloric restriction is a fancy way of saying “starvation.” The initial results of this study are now making headlines in papers across the country. But while scientists debate the value of starving monkeys for decades on end to help stave off diabetes, heart disease and other so-called diseases of old age, pe
