I went back and checked this old 1993 popsci and it said low calorie, not protein. Man, my memory is fading even at the ripe age of 21. 😛 Anyways, it said that mammals consistently underfed (not starved) lived longer than their normally fed counterparts.
ever so slightly off topic, but an interesting qoute to share;
"until age 40, Venetian nobleman Luigi Cornaro lived a life of culinary excess. But after that,he subsided on a mere 14 ounces of food a day. Shortly before he died in 1566, at age 102, he published a series of essays explaining his secret: 'Not to satiate oneself with food is the science of health.' "