Scientists continue to try and recreate aspects of the biochemical changes brought on by calorie restriction, in an effort to generate the health and longevity benefits via medicine. An example can be found at ScienceDaily: ''a newly discovered vitamin activates the yeast anti-aging gene product Sir2, which resembles sirtuins found in humans. ... ...

A number of researchers have investigated intermittant fasting as a method of calorie restriction (CR) to obtain health and longevity benefits - no weighty conclusions yet as to whether it's better or worse for the average fellow (or mouse) than simple CR. This paper notes that fasting, as one might expect, causes alterations in sirtuin ...