In the Sunday Times of 19th February, Jonathan Leake reported on claims by Mark Mattson, Professor of neurosciences at John Hopkins University that eating every other day has the same beneficial effects as calorie restriction. Such diets appear to  " protect the heart, circulatory system and brain against age related diseases, including Alzheimer’s"
 "animals fed intermittently retained a higher sensitivity to insulin"and "also improved the animals’ resistance to a neurotoxin that simulates Alzheimer’s disease.Mattson compared the brains of animals fed a low calorie diet with those of animals that had eaten well. Calorie restricted diets appeared to enhance the function of brain synapses - the junctions between brain cells that promote the generation of new cells and make them more resistant to stress."