Scientists from Howard Hughes Medical Institute found that the body’s daily rhythms play a big part in this longevity effect.
They found that eating only during the most active time of day substantially may extend the lifespan on a reduced-calorie diet.
The research is published in Science and was conducted by Joseph Takahashi et al.
Previous 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 levels.
As an animal ages, genes linked to inflammation tend to become more active, while genes that help regulate metabolism become less active.
The 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.
Recent years have seen the rise of many popular diet plans that focus on what’s known as intermittent fastings, such as fasting on alternate days or eating only during a period of six to eight hours per day.
To unravel the effects of calories, fasting, and daily, or circadian, rhythms on longevity, the team undertook an extensive four-year experiment.
In the current study of hundreds of mice, the team found 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 team says the research helps disentangle the controversy around diet plans that emphasize eating only at certain times of day.
Such plans may not speed weight loss in humans, but they could prompt health benefits that add up to a longer lifespan.
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