Researchers at the Babraham Institute, led by Dr. Jon Houseley, have suggested an alternative perspective on the connection between diet and aging. Their yeast-based experiments suggest that improving one's diet may allow for healthy aging, dispelling the belief that age-related health problems are unavoidable.
It has long been known in the scientific community that reducing calorie intake can have positive effects on health and potentially extend a person's lifespan. However, studies conducted on mice have revealed that maintaining caloric restriction throughout life is essential in order to reap these benefits, and these rewards disappear once a normal diet is reintroduced. Dr. Houseley's ground-breaking research, which uses yeast, presents a new pathway to achieving improved health throughout an organism's entire lifespan.
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“We show that diet in early life can switch yeast onto a healthier trajectory. By giving yeast a different diet without restricting calories we were able to suppress senescence, when cells no longer divide, and loss of fitness in aged cells.” Said Dr Dorottya Horkai, lead researcher on the study.
Instead of cultivating yeast on their typical glucose-based diet, the scientists altered their diet to include galactose. Remarkably, this dietary shift prevented many of the typical molecular aging-related changes from taking place. Cells nourished with galactose remained as robust as youthful cells even in their later stages of life, though their overall lifespan remained unchanged. This outcome substantially reduced the duration of the age-related decline in health.
Dr. Houseley stresses the critical point that dietary changes yield results solely in youthful cells, leaving little impact on aged yeast. Although comparing youth between yeast and humans is complex, these studies consistently highlight the same message: embracing a healthy diet early in life can make a substantial difference in living long and well.
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Using yeast as model organisms for studying aging is valuable because they possess similar cellular machinery to animals and humans. This research approach provides a more practical means of exploring the possibilities of improving healthy aging through diet, as compared to extreme and continuous calorie restriction. However, additional research is essential to gain further insights into the potential benefits of dietary optimization in humans.
The study's findings were published in the journal PLOS Biology.
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