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Fasting-Like Diet Lowers Risk Factors for Disease, Reduces Biological Age in Humans: Study

posted by janrinok on Saturday February 24 2024, @08:36PM   

taylorvich writes:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-fasting-diet-lowers-factors-disease.html

Cycles of a diet that mimics fasting can reduce signs of immune system aging, as well as insulin resistance and liver fat in humans, resulting in a lower biological age, according to a new USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology-led study.

The study, published in Nature Communications on Feb. 20, adds to the body of evidence supporting the beneficial effects of the fasting-mimicking diet (FMD).

The FMD is a five-day diet high in unsaturated fats and low in overall calories, protein, and carbohydrates and is designed to mimic the effects of a water-only fast while still providing necessary nutrients and making it much easier for people to complete the fast. The diet was developed by the laboratory of USC Leonard Davis School Professor Valter Longo, the senior author of the new study.

"This is the first study to show that a food-based intervention that does not require chronic dietary or other lifestyle changes can make people biologically younger, based on both changes in risk factors for aging and disease and on a validated method developed by the Levine group to assess biological age," Longo said.

Previous research led by Longo has indicated that brief, periodic FMD cycles are associated with a range of beneficial effects. They can:

• Promote stem cell regeneration

• Lessen chemotherapy side effects
• Reduce the signs of dementia in mice

In addition, the FMD cycles can lower the risk factors for cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other age-related diseases in humans.

The Longo lab also had previously shown that one or two cycles of the FMD for five days a month increased the healthspan and lifespan of mice on either a normal or Western diet, but the effects of the FMD on aging and biological age, liver fat, and immune system aging in humans were unknown until now.

More information:Fasting-mimicking diet causes hepatic and blood markers changes indicating reduced biological age and disease risk, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45260-9

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Original Submission

• Pathetic Pathetic (Score: 3, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Sunday February 25 2024, @12:18AM (1 child)

  by DadaDoofy (23827) on Sunday February 25 2024, @12:18AM (#1346123)

  TFA has literally twenty eight references to the use of various models they relied on to reach this conclusion. Seriously? I can build a model that will generate any result you want. Is modeling, rather than actual studies with real people, really accepted as "science" now?

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+1
  Insightful=3, Overrated=2, Total=5
  Extra 'Insightful' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		3

• read the paper! (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2024, @03:34AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2024, @03:34AM (#1346146)

  From the paper, linked at the bottom of the fine story, it reports on an actual study:

  Results
  Study participants’ baseline data

  Primary outcome measures for this trial (clinicaltrials.gov/NCT02158897) were to establish the effect of the FMD on metabolic syndrome and biomarkers associated with aging or age-related diseases. For this randomized trial, the sample size of 100 total study participants was based on the detection of a 25% reduction in mean insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), with a two-sided α of 0.05 and 70% power. The estimated control group mean (SD) IGF-1 of 194 (97) used published data on males and females aged 26 to 40 years35. The baseline characteristics for all study participants were previously reported34. In brief, 100 study participants were randomized and assigned to either arm 1 (n = 48) or arm 2 (n = 52). [.....]

  Parent