That semi-starvation diet that was supposed to make you live longer — based on monkey experiments?

After 25 years, the results are in: The starved monkeys didn't live any longer than the unstarved monkeys. Cancer, heart disease — again, no difference. So if you've been straining toward semi-immortality by counting grains of brown rice or whatever... have a sandwich and a good cry.

Then there is Mark Mattson, chief of the laboratory of neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging, who was not part of the monkey study. He believes there is merit to caloric restriction, but his routine is to do it intermittently, eating much less, but not every day. It can help the brain, he says, as well as make people healthier and probably make them live longer.

Dr. Mattson, who is 5 foot 9 and weighs 130 pounds, skips breakfast and lunch on weekdays and skips breakfast on weekends.

“I get a little hungry,” he acknowledged. “But we think being hungry is actually good.”

It can help the brain, he says... demonstrating not the most impressive brain.