Low-Calorie Diets Delay the Genetic Expression of Aging

The most counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday.

Maintaining a low-calorie diet can help you age more slowly, delaying unsavory aspects of aging like dementia and Alzheimer’s. The reason, according to a new study out of New York University, is that reduced calorie diets arrest the expression of thousands of genes responsible for changing your brain as you age.

“Stephen D. Ginsberg, PhD. Ginsberg cautions that the study does not mean calorie restriction is the ‘fountain of youth,’ but that it does ‘add evidence for the role of diet in delaying the effects of aging and age-related disease.'”

Doctors know that keeping a healthy diet can help prevent conditions like hypertension, heart disease, and stroke, but until now, the mechanism behind this observation has been poorly understood. While previous studies examined the effects of diet on one or two genes that control for aging, the new NYU study analyzes how diet alters the expression of more than 10,000 genes.

In his Big Think interview, Nutrition expert Johnny Bowden explains how your conscious mind, not just your genes, affects how you age. Like many other things in life, says Bowden, the way in which you think about aging has profound effects on how it actually functions. Don’t let old age become a self-fulfilling prophesy!