Cutting Calories and Eating at the Right Time of Day Leads to Longer Life in Mice
Published:07 May2022 Source:Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Now, new research suggests that the body's daily rhythms play a big part in this longevity effect. Eating only during their most active time of day substantially extended the lifespan of mice on a reduced-calorie diet, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Joseph Takahashi and colleagues report May 5, 2022, in the journal Science. In his team's study of hundreds of mice over four years, a reduced-calorie diet alone extended the animals' lives by 10 percent. But feeding mice the diet only at nighttime, when mice are most active, extended life by 35 percent. That combo -- a reduced-calorie diet plus a nighttime eating schedule -- tacked on an extra nine months to the animals' typical two-year median lifespan. For people, an analogous plan would restrict eating to daytime hours.
The research helps disentangle the controversy around diet plans that emphasize eating only at certain times of day, says Takahashi, a molecular biologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Such plans may not speed weight loss in humans, as a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported, but they could prompt health benefits that add up to a longer lifespan. Takahashi's team's findings highlight the crucial role of metabolism in aging, says Sai Krupa Das, a nutrition scientist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging who was not involved with the work. "This is a very promising and landmark study," she says.