Neuroscience News: Cutting Calories and Eating at the Right Time of Day Leads to Longer Life in Mice

“One recipe for longevity is simple, if not easy to follow: eat less. Studies in a variety of animals have shown that restricting calories can lead to a longer, healthier life.

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.”

“Decades of research has found that calorie restriction extends the lifespan of animals ranging from worms and flies to mice, rats, and primates. Those experiments report weight loss, improved glucose regulation, lower blood pressure, and reduced inflammation.”

“Scientists are just beginning to understand how calorie restriction slows aging at the cellular and genetic level. As an animal ages, genes linked to inflammation tend to become more active, while genes that help regulate metabolism become less active. Takahashi’s new study found that calorie restriction, especially when timed to the mice’s active period at night, helped offset these genetic changes as mice aged.”

“...The results suggest that time-restricted eating has positive effects on the body, even if it doesn’t promote weight loss, as the New England Journal of Medicine study suggested. Takahashi points out that his study likewise found no differences in body weight among mice on different eating schedules—’however, we found profound differences in lifespan,’ he says.


Read the full article here

#Lifespan #Metabolism #EatingHabits

My Take:

While I haven’t gone into the full experience of intermittent fasting myself, I can absolutely vouch for the effects of caloric restriction in my own life and body, especially as they relate to controlling and affecting inflammation. Prior to a few years ago, I never really paid that much attention to what or when I took nutrition into my body. However, weight gain and a slowed metabolism soon forced my hand and I had to really take a look at myself.

And what I found was interesting; while I was never overweight to the point of obesity, I did notice that with my cerebral palsy, that any amount of extra weight that I absolutely did not need on my body’s frame aggravated my chronic pain, joints, as well as just the general inflammation in my body.

This took me on a journey of finding the right foods (protein shakes for breakfast in particular) and evaluating their effect on my body. Lastly, like the premise of this article states, I learned to listen to my body based on how it felt as far as when and how much food I should take in. At first, this started with me being on the CICO diet–calories in and calories out. I would keep a rough tally, numerically, of how much I was taking in.

After a couple years of doing this, I thankfully got to the point where I could eat (or not eat) by feel of my body. This, coupled with switching my liquid intake to almost exclusively water, led me to dropping weight and feeling so much better overall, everyday.

And as a question for you all:

In what ways in your lives have you noticed your eating habits affecting you? Also, how mindful would you say you are of the quantity, type, as well as the times in which you take your nutrition in?