The quality of the food we eat and the amount of food we eat can of course affect our health. An old advice in China is to not eat too much food. Eating modest amounts of food will prevent the digestion from taking too much power from us and thus helps us to have a clearer mind and sufficiently high energy levels.
Modern scientific research has shown that there are health benefits from constraining the number of calories. Studies on rats and mice show that when these animals are on a diet they tend to live up to 30% longer and that their brain cells are protected from developing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
Historical data also support this idea. In some situations – for example wars – where people has suffered from a shortage of food the mortality in heart-diseases, diabetes and cancer has been found to decrease considerably.