How a low-calorie diet slows down aging

Scientists have managed to slow down the aging process in mice

Brigham Young University News: How eating less can slow the aging process

A multibillion-dollar industry is engaged in the development of means that slow down aging, but these means work mainly at the skin level. Real aging occurs much deeper – at the cellular level, and scientists from Brigham Young University have found that reducing the diet can slow it down. They published an article about this in the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics (Mathis et al., Mechanisms of In Vivo Ribosome Maintenance Change in Response to Nutrient Signals – VM).

Researchers have found that when ribosomes – the producers of proteins – slow down their work, the aging process of cells also slows down. The rate of protein production becomes less, but at the same time ribosomes get the opportunity for "maintenance" – they have extra time to recover. The senior author of the study, Professor of biochemistry John Price, called these cell elements a complex system and compared them to cars. When the tires are erased, he explained, the owner of the car does not throw it away, but simply changes what is necessary. The same thing happens with ribosomes.

Experiments on mice have shown that the work of ribosomes slows down the reduction in the caloric content of food consumed. Professor Price and his colleagues observed two groups of mice, one of which ate the same as always, and the caloric content of the diet of the other was reduced by 35%, while retaining all the nutrients. The head of the group noted that the relationship between the number of calories consumed and life expectancy was almost linear, and that changing the diet really slowed down the aging process in experimental animals, causing biochemical changes in their organisms. John Price's group is not the first to prove that there is a link between the calorie content of food and life expectancy, but the first to show that reducing calories slows down protein synthesis. The scientists also said that mice kept on a low-calorie diet suffered less from diseases, were more energetic and stayed young longer.

Ribosomes are expensive for the body. To produce all the necessary proteins, they use 10-20% of the cell's energy. When the ribosome starts to work worse, it is "cheaper" for the body to let it recover so that it can produce proteins further than to bring the situation to the destruction of a valuable element.

However, the researchers stressed that you should not immediately try to cut your diet. The effect of slowing down aging has so far been observed only in mice.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  20.02.2017