Low-calorie diet and aging
In the latest issue of The Journals of Gerontology, Series A titled "Caloric Restriction and Restrictive Diets: Interventions that Target the Biology of Aging" published a series of articles devoted to the study of a low-calorie diet, which is a proven method of increasing the lifespan of many organisms. According to the editor-in-chief of the journal in the field of biological sciences, Dr. Rozalyn M. Anderson, the topics of publications range from experiments on simple single-cell models to the results of the first-of-its-kind clinical study of the effectiveness of a low-calorie diet as a method of increasing human longevity.
The positive effect of a simple reduction in the caloric content of the diet on life expectancy was first demonstrated in experiments on rodents more than 80 years ago. Over the past decades, as genetic technologies have improved, researchers have made significant progress in identifying cellular and systemic processes that presumably contribute to an increase in predisposition to diseases associated with aging.
Traditionally, such studies have been conducted on short-lived laboratory animals. However, recent confirmation that the paradigm of a low-calorie diet extends to mammals has revived and increased interest in studying the mechanisms by which reducing the caloric content of the diet postpones the aging process.
Anderson notes the importance of the fact that a low-calorie diet effectively slows down the aging of many species and the first clinical results also look very encouraging. In many studies, a low-calorie diet is used as the "gold standard" method of increasing life expectancy, with which the effects of new drugs and other strategies for slowing aging are compared.
One of the articles describes the results of the CALERIE study, the first clinical study of a low–calorie diet conducted in three centers in the United States. This groundbreaking work has demonstrated not only the tolerability of a low-calorie diet (while maintaining the fullness of nutrition), but also its positive effect on the risk of developing many diseases. Using two different calculation methods, the authors identified a lower rate of aging in the participants of the group that followed a low-calorie diet, compared with the control group. This discovery paved the way for molecular studies of the reactions of the human body to a low-calorie diet. These methods will allow us to find surrogate markers of healthy aging, which are extremely necessary for conducting clinical studies of drugs and dietary approaches that potentially contribute to healthy aging.
Article by Rozalyn M Anderson et al. Caloric Restriction Research: New Perspectives on the Biology of Aging published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series A.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru Based on the materials of the Gerontological Society of America: In Delaying Aging, Caloric Restriction Becomes A Powerful Research Tool as Human Studies Get Underway.