Eating less can lead to a longer life: massive study in mice shows why
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Fat cells (artificially coloured). Restrictive diets cause fat loss and lengthen life, but the two effects are not necessarily linked. Credit: Steve Gschmeissner/Science Photo Library
Cutting calorie intake can lead to a leaner body — and a longer life, an effect often chalked up to the weight loss and metabolic changes caused by consuming less food. Now, one of the biggest studies1 of dietary restrictions ever conducted in laboratory animals challenges the conventional wisdom about how dietary restriction boosts longevity.
The study, involving nearly 1,000 mice fed low-calorie diets or subjected to regular bouts of fasting, found that such regimens do indeed cause weight loss and related metabolic changes. But other factors — including immune health, genetics and physiological indicators of resiliency — seem to better explain the link between cutting calories and increased lifespan.
“The metabolic changes are important,” says Gary Churchill, a mouse geneticist at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, who co-led the study. “But they don’t lead to lifespan extension.”
