Calorie Restriction Activates Life Extending Genes

Researchers studying the biochemical factors that control aging have found that calorie restriction, the consumption of fewer calories while avoiding malnutrition, causes changes that result in slowing the aging process in mice, even in older animals.

Investigators at the University of California at Riverside (USA) collaborated with colleagues from BioMarker Pharmaceutical Inc. (Campbell, CA, USA) to study the effects of calorie restriction on a population of older mice. They found that when 19-month-old mice were placed on a regimen of calorie restriction, mean time to death increased by 42% within two months. Tumors as a cause of death decreased from 80% to 67%. Genome-wide microarray analysis of hepatic RNA from old control mice switched to calorie restriction diets for two, four, and eight weeks showed a rapid and progressive shift toward the gene expression profile produced by long-term calorie restriction.

Shifting from long-term calorie restriction to a control diet, which returned the animals to the control rate of aging, reversed 90% of the gene expression effects of long-term calorie restriction within eight weeks. These findings were published in the March 25, 2004, online edition of the Proceedings of the [U.S] National Academy of Sciences.

"The beneficial effects of calorie restriction have been known for some time, but only when animals are started on the diet early in life. This is the first demonstration that these effects can be obtained even when calorie restriction is started late in life,” explained Dr. Joseph Dhahbi, research director at BioMarker Pharmaceutical.




Related Links:
University of California, Riverside
BioMarker Pharmaceutical Inc.