Eating a balanced diet is a no-brainer for anyone wanting to be healthier. However, it turns out that a specific diet could provide even more benefits. Researchers have found that a 2-year calorie restriction diet may significantly slow the aging process.
This study, published in Nature Aging on June 19, 2024, looks into how dietary interventions can promote healthier aging and reduce the risk of age-related diseases.
A customer has a meal at the vegan restaurant "L'Herbivore" in Berlin on April 29, 2016.JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP via Getty Images
How a Particular Diet Can Slow Aging
The study analyzed data from the Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy (CALERIE) study, which included participants who underwent mild caloric restriction, reducing their caloric intake by approximately 12%.
Despite this moderate reduction, participants experienced notable health benefits, including a significant decrease in biological age.
What's biological age? Unlike chronological age (your age in years), biological age looks at other factors like biomarkers, genes, and environment to give a better picture of your overall health and how you are aging.
The researchers used sophisticated methods to determine biological age, including developing biological age clocks that predict a person's age based on these health factors.
These clocks, known as PCAge and LinAge, were designed to identify patterns indicating healthy or unhealthy aging. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was employed to simplify complex clinical data, making it easier to identify these patterns.
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Interesting Findings
The study found that a 2-year calorie restriction diet led to significant reductions in biological age and several known cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors.
"Our analysis of CALERIE participants suggests that 2 years of mild caloric restriction significantly reduces biological age," the study stated. This finding underscores the potential of dietary interventions to slow the aging process and improve overall health.
Daniel Belsky, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, emphasized the importance of these findings. "The CALERIE data in this paper confirm our previous findings indicating that the CALERIE intervention slowed the pace of biological aging," he told Newsweek.
He noted that the consistent results across different tools validate the hypothesis, demonstrating the robustness of the study's conclusions.
The Study: A Closer Look
The researchers developed two key tools, PCAge and LinAge, to measure biological age. PCAge identifies signs of metabolic problems, heart and kidney issues, and inflammation linked to unhealthy aging. These problems can often be addressed with existing treatments, providing helpful insights for promoting healthy aging.
LinAge, a simpler version of PCAge, uses less data but predicts biological age just as well. This makes it a practical tool in many settings. The study also introduced CALinAge, a customized tool tailored to specific study data, which further improves the accuracy of biological age predictions.
The study's findings are important for promoting healthy aging through diet. The decrease in biological age seen in participants of a calorie restriction study highlights how reducing calorie intake can slow aging and lower the risk of age-related diseases.
By combining different biological markers, the study offers targets for preventative medicine and a path toward healthier aging.
