Diet and mitochondria
MSU scientists were able to slow down the aging of rats by limiting their diet
MSU scientists together with Voronezh colleagues investigated how dietary restriction affects the work of internal organs. Experiments on rats have shown that even a short reduction in the amount of food consumed restrains the negative effects of aging, including if you start to follow a diet in old age. The results of the work supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation are published in the FEBS Journal (Gureev et al., Dietary restriction modulates mitochondrial DNA damage and oxylipin profile in aged rats).
In Russia, as in the whole world, the problem of population aging is quite acute, as the number of older citizens is increasing every year. Increasing people's life expectancy, maintaining their health and working capacity in adulthood are an integral task of modern society.
Currently, there are many theories as to why we are aging, but scientists have yet to understand which of the mechanisms is the main one and which of the levers should be used to overcome this process. One of the leading theories suggests that the deterioration of health with age is the disruption of mitochondria — tiny power plants in our cells.
"These organelles are present in every cell of our body and throughout our lives are actively involved in obtaining energy from the food consumed. Over time, various "breakdowns" inevitably accumulate in our mitochondria. With aging, there are so many of them that the cells simply do not have time to eliminate them. This interferes with the normal functioning of the body, which cannot but affect health and well—being," explained the first author of the work, Artem Gureev, a researcher at Voronezh State University and Voronezh State University of Engineering Technologies.
A team of biologists from the A.N. Belozersky Research Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology of Moscow State University and Voronezh State University is studying the mechanisms of aging and searching for effective methods to slow it down. In their new work, the scientists decided to find a way to slow down the accumulation of breakdowns in mitochondria.
"In the course of our work, we were interested in the question of whether food restriction could become the way we were looking for. It was especially interesting to show this on old animals, since it is in old age that "breakdowns" in cells accumulate faster. To solve this problem, we took old rats, and some of them were kept on a limited diet, while the rest were fed without restrictions. After two months of the diet, we measured the number of "breakdowns" in their mitochondria in their organs and assessed some parameters of their functioning. Surprisingly, even such a short—term diet seriously slowed down the negative aging processes both in the brain and in some other organs, in particular the kidneys," said the project manager. Egor Plotnikov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Laboratory of the A.N. Belozersky Moscow State University.
The work of Russian scientists proves that even a small restriction on the amount of food consumed has a positive effect on the work of internal organs. It triggers in the body the mechanisms of cleansing cells from accumulated damaged components and helps to improve the condition of our body. Thus, the published study not only reveals the mechanisms of aging a little more, but also tries to get closer to developing possible ways to slow it down.
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