A new study points out that Restricting calories more and more can prolong life . Researchers at Pennsylvania State University in the United States carried out the research for two years and discovered that calorie restriction in humans genetically slowed down the aging process.
In the research, published in the journal Aging Cell, discovered that, initially, Calorie restriction accelerated telomere shortening – protective DNA elements at the ends of chromosomes. The shortening of telomeres accelerates cell death and consequently causes aging. Rats were first used for the study.
However, after a year, calorie restriction began to slow the process. At the end of two years, the group of animals with calorie restriction caused less telomere shortening than the unrestricted feeding groups.
Similar result in humans
Subsequently, the study was carried out with 175 human participants. They were all between 21 and 50 years old and healthy. Two-thirds of participants committed to a 25% calorie restriction for two years and the remainder continued with their normal diet.
Participants were also instructed to perform moderate exercise for 30 minutes, at least five times a week. They provided meals to participants in the calorie-restricted group for the first 27 days to help them with food selection and portion sizes to ensure adequate intake of essential nutrients throughout the study.
During the first year, participants who restricted their caloric intake lost weight and telomeres more quickly than the “normal” eating group. During the second year of the study, however, the calorie-restricted participants lost telomeres more slowly than the other group.
“There are many reasons why calorie restriction may extend human life expectancy, and the topic is still being studied,” said Waylon Hastings, lead author of the study.
“A primary mechanism through which life is prolonged is related to a cell’s metabolism. When energy is consumed within a cell, the waste from this process causes oxidative stress that can damage DNA and otherwise break down the cell. When a person's cells consume less energy due to calorie restriction, however, there is less waste and the cell does not break down as quickly,” he pointed out.
Idan Shalev, a professor who led the research, said the two-year study was not long enough to draw firm conclusions about the effect of calorie restriction on telomere length.
“This research shows the complexity of how calorie restriction affects telomere loss,” he said in a press release. “We hypothesized that telomere loss would be slower among people with calorie restriction. Instead, we found that calorie-restricted people lost telomeres more quickly at first and then more slowly after their weight stabilized.”
The team will follow the selected group of people for another 10 years to see what happens to telomere length during this longer period.
The research also emphasizes that its results are important for understanding how diet affects cellular aging.
Source: CNN Brasil
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