Investigators have discovered a fountain of youth, but the argument is not easily convincing. It’s all about consuming far fewer calories.
Apparently, It is not about losing weight, but about the benefits of not overloading our cells. Scientists have discovered that reducing food intake can double the life expectancy of mice and add years to monkeys. And now, a large clinical study called Calerie presents new evidence of a possible effect in humans based on a two-year trial that changed molecular markers of aging in calorie-deprived subjects.
Talking about reducing food intake can be a difficult topic. For people, eating is a pleasure and it is necessary to eat to survive. Not eating enough can be a problem, it is possible to fall into malnutrition and even have eating disorders. And for those who are trying to lose weight, reducing the amount of food is very difficult. Surely there must be a better fountain of youth out there somewhere, right?
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In fact, the scientists responsible for the study hope that the results can help to understand the secret ingredient in caloric restriction that allows the extension of life, and so people can benefit in more pleasant ways. They say we could soon find ways to extend our lives with relatively minor adjustments to our diet, including currently fashionable practices like intermittent fasting or restricting eating at certain times, without ever having to stop enjoying our favorite recipes or restaurants.
Dieting is very difficult, and they found over the two-year trial that the study subjects only achieved a small reduction of about 300 calories per day less than they were previously consuming. And yet they got a measurable benefit.
This could mean we don’t have to suffer (too much) to benefit from the findings.said Sai Krupa Das, a student of aging and nutrition at Tufts University and co-author of the study.
Observational evidence in favor of caloric restriction came from the island of Okinawa, where, until recently, people enjoyed the longest life expectancy in the world and their traditional diet was unusually low in calories.
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Other data came from Roy Walford, physician and researcher at California University (Los Angeles), founder of the modern calorie restriction movement. In 1991, he joined up with six bionauts and they locked themselves in a dome in the Arizona desert where they were supposed to grow their own food.. The production quickly fell short and so he turned the fiasco into a calorie restriction experiment and reported many indicators of improved health among his starving peers.
The Calerie study published its findings in Nature Aging. The volunteers were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group was supposed to eat only 75% of their normal intake over a two-year period. The others, in the control group, ate as usual.
The calorie reduction group worked with nutritionists to define what their normal intake was and how to reduce it while still getting enough protein, vitamins and minerals. By the end of the trial, they had cut about 300 calories from their daily intake, about half of their goal (as I mentioned, eating less is really hard).
The study has a couple of limitations. The sample size was small: only 220 people in the two groups. Additionally, those who cut calories worked hand in hand with a nutritionist and may have benefited from eating better foods than control subjects, not just from eating less.
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Nevertheless, the changes they made showed some major health benefitssaid William Kraus, cardiologist at Duke University who collaborated in the study. Compared to control subjects, the slightly calorie-deprived group had markers of better cardiovascular and metabolic health.
The subjects started with a body mass index between 22 and 28, which is considered normal to overweight. They tended to lose weight early in the study and then level off.
But even after they stopped losing weight, they continued to report improvements in their health, based on blood measurements, a finding published in a previous article. The new study looked at what the researchers call “aging clocks” in the same subjects. Studying these molecular timekeepers requires tracking changes in something called epigenetic markers: little chemical pieces that stick to and block certain parts of DNA from being activated. Our epigenetic markers can move slowly and shuffle over time, something scientists have learned to use to estimate age.
What this study focused on was the rate of agingsaid Daniel Belsky, an epidemiologist and study co-author, from the Columbia School of Public Health. They saw signs that the cells of those who cut calories were aging a bit more slowly. It made a small difference overall, but it could be somewhat significant if the subjects kept their caloric intake reduced. Das, of Tufts, said he is working on a follow-up study to see if the subjects maintained the new eating patterns and how it affected them.
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Kraus, the cardiologist, laid out some reasons why eating less might slow aging. The part of our cells that produces energy, called the mitochondria, goes into overdrive when you eat a lot. “It’s like warming up a car engine,” he said. Toxic byproducts are produced: reactive oxidative species, also known as free radicals.
So cutting calories can moderate the load on those mitochondria, he said. Exercise can have a similar effect and helps mitochondria burn metabolic waste. “It reduces the load of garbage in the cell and makes it more efficient,” he said.
There’s still a lot scientists are trying to learn about the benefits of caloric restriction and whether intermittent fasting would really have the same benefits.
But before you drop those chocolates, the story of Walford, the biodome researcher, carries an important caveat. Yes, according to reports, he ate sparingly all his life and remained slim with a height of 1.73m and a weight of 59kg. But Walford developed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a debilitating neurological disease) and died at age 79.
Cutting calories could help people live longer and healthier on average. But there is no guarantee that it will add years of life.
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