Dietary and lifestyle interventions may be able to reduce biological aging and have the potential to influence healthspan, life expectancy, and the economic burden of aging.
This is demonstrated by a study published in Aging and Aging-US, led by researcher Kara N. Fitzgerald of the Institute for Functional Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University (United States) in collaboration with the American Nutrition Association. The study involved six women who completed a diet and lifestyle program designed to impact DNA methylation and measures of biological aging.
“A methylation-supporting diet and lifestyle intervention can favorably influence biological age in both sexes during midlife and old age,” comment the experts who conducted the study.
Five of the six participants showed a reduction in biological age of between 1.22 and 11.01 years relative to their baseline biological age. There was a statistically significant difference in the mean biological age of participants before (55.83 years) and after (51.23 years) the 8-week diet and lifestyle intervention, with a mean decrease of 4.60 years.
The mean chronological age at the start of the program was 57.9 years, and all but one participant had a younger biological age than their chronological age at the start of the program, suggesting that the changes in biological age were not related to disease improvement and could instead be attributed to underlying aging mechanisms.