This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Calories are a measure of energy in food. A small study has foundthat people improved their health when they severely restricted theamount of calories they ate. The study found that the people reducedtheir risk of heart attack, stroke and diabetes. Such risk normallyincreases with age.

Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine inSaint Louis, Missouri, led the study. They say lower risk of diseasemeans that the people can expect to live longer than average lives.The results appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences.

Researchers compared people who ate a traditional Western dietwith people who ate fewer calories. They found that those whorestricted their calories had less chance of blocked arteries. Fattymaterial can block the flow of blood to the heart and brain, andcause a heart attack or stroke.

The researchers found the people for the study through anorganization called the Caloric Restriction Optimal NutritionSociety. Members of this group try to eat between ten andtwenty-five percent fewer calories than the average American.

Eighteen members took part in the study. Their ages werethirty-five to eighty-two. They had lived on restricted calories forbetween three years and fifteen years. Doctors compared them with agroup of people who ate normally.

The calorie-restricted group ate between one-thousand-one-hundredcalories and about two-thousand calories per day. The amountdepended on their weight, height and sex.

Twenty-six percent of the calories came from protein.Twenty-eight percent came from fat. And forty-six percent came fromcomplex carbohydrates, such as whole grains.

The other group ate between about two-thousand andthree-thousand-five-hundred calories per day. Eighteen percent oftheir calories came from protein. Thirty-two percent came from fat.And fifty percent came from carbohydrates. These included processedsugars and grains.

The researchers tested both groups for signs of blocked arteries.The team measured blood pressure and levels of several chemicals inthe blood, including cholesterol and triglycerides. The doctors saidsome of the people who ate fewer calories had results like those ofpeople many years younger.

This VOA Special English Health Report was written by JerilynWatson.