Ageing slowed by fewer calories
Updated on 09 July 2009
Eating less may help people to live longer, a new study suggests.
Scientists have shown for the first time that a nutritious but reduced calorie diet delays ageing in primates.
The 20-year study, carried out on rhesus monkeys, also found that calorie restriction helped prevent age-related disorders such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and brain atrophy.
Similar findings have been seen before in yeast, worms, flies and rodents, but the new results are the first to suggest that cutting calories by about 30% can add years to the lives of primates, and therefore possibly humans.
Rhesus monkeys have an average life span of about 27 years in captivity.
However, the oldest of those taking part in the study have survived to 29, a 7% increase. The same effect in humans would mean around six years of extra life.
Professor Richard Weindruch, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, who led the research, said: "We have been able to show that caloric restriction can slow the ageing process in a primate species.
"We observed that caloric restriction reduced the risk of developing an age-related disease by a factor of three and increased survival."
Co-researcher Dr Sterling Johnson, also from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said: "We can't yet make the claim that a difference in diet is associated with functional change because those studies are still ongoing. What we know so far is that there are regional differences in brain mass that appear to be related to diet."
The research was published in the journal Science.
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