Fasting memetics

A fasting memetic is some mechanism that mimics the stress response from fasting, such as taking resveratrol or Metformin, or plain old exercise. Aubrey de Grey has expressed doubt that fasting memetics can have much effect on aging, noting that fasting in itself has been shown to be less effective in longer lived species such as humans, compared to shorter lived species. But the fact is that most or all of our present approaches to aging take exactly this approach. 

So I'm wondering if calling these 'fasting memetic' isn't correct. Resveratrol doesn't induce a fasting response, it's just a stress response, like fasting has a stress response. Perhaps a better way to consider it is to recognize that activating stress pathways, along with normalizing existing processes (e.g. autophagy) is what we are really doing here. 

Food for thought.