Cut your calorie intake to live longer
(ANI)
Updated: 2007-03-07 15:43
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The researcher duo – Anthony Civitarese and Eric Ravussin – says that since oxidative damage has been linked to aging, it could explain how limiting calorie intake without malnutrition extends life span.
Scientists say that a calorie-restricted diet provides all the nutrients necessary for a healthy life but minimizes the supply of energy supplied in the diet.
Such a diet has been found to increase the life span of mice and delay the onset of age-related chronic diseases such as cancers, heart disease, and stroke in rodents.
One theory for how caloric restriction slows aging is that it lowers free-radical production by inducing the formation of efficient mitochondria.
Thirty-six healthy overweight but non-obese young people were enrolled in the study. They were divided in three groups – one receiving 100 per cent of their energy requirements, caloric restriction group (CR) with 25 per cent cut in calorie intake, and caloric restriction plus exercise (CREX) group with 12.5 per cent reduction in calorie intake and same amount of increased energy expenditure.
It was seen during the analysis of genes involved in mitochondria formation that CR and CREX both increased the number of mitochondria in muscle, besides reducing the amount of DNA damage in the participants' muscles.
The researchers also examined gene expression in the study participants, and found that a lesser intake of calories may lead to increase in SIRT1 gene expression in skeletal muscle, which may in turn contribute to more efficient metabolism, less oxidative stress, and increase longevity in humans.
They suggest that even short-term caloric restriction can produce beneficial physiological changes leading to improved health, but whether these health benefits can be sustained over longer term still remains to be established in humans.
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