A study published in the Frontiers in Medicine investigating dietary diversity and the pace of aging has found that intake of food from five major food groups is associated with slowed aging, which may in part be due to reduced inflammation and oxidative stress. The findings remind us of the importance of a varied diet rich in macro and micronutrients combined with antioxidants to slow aging and prevent age-related diseases.
Other research has associated different diets such as the Mediterranean Diet with a decreased incidence of age-related diseases. The Mediterranean Diet was also shown to be linked with a slower pace of aging. But, until now, whether or not dietary diversity may influence the pace of aging has not been examined, according to the researchers, and this study provides some of the first data suggesting that diet diversity may contribute to the slowing of aging.
This study involved 22,600 adult participants and showed an association between dietary diversity with food sources from all 5 food groups (fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, and meat) and slowed biological aging. The study also showed a connection between dietary diversity and lower levels of glutamytransferase (GGT) inflammation.
Dietary Diversity Associated With Slower Pace of Aging
Participant dietary diversity scores were aggregated by collecting data from two separate rounds of 24-hour periods in which food consumption was recorded which was done to assess the diversity of food intake from the five major food groups across all of the participants.
The researchers measured the participant’s biological age based on cell and tissue function, then subtracted their chronological age from the biological age scores. Any participant scores below zero suggested slowed aging and scores above zero predicted accelerated aging. Then the researchers applied their assessments of biological age and predictions of the pace of aging to determine if a correlation existed between slowed aging and higher dietary diversity.
Their analysis revealed that higher dietary diversity scores were associated with slower paces of aging. This conclusion was reached from their observation that increasing dietary diversity scores in the participants resulted in lower values of age acceleration. The data also showed a negative correlation between dietary diversity scores and accelerated aging almost fit a line when graphed, suggesting that increasing dietary diversity is proportionately associated with slowing age acceleration.
Next, the researchers looked at the blood levels of cells and molecules used to make health prognoses. This analysis revealed that higher dietary diversity scores correlated with lower white blood cell counts and lower GGT enzymes (indicators of inflammation and oxidative stress), suggesting that higher dietary diversity levels may lower inflammation.
Oxidative stress has been linked to aging by increasing inflammation in other research. As such, the researchers hypothesized that GGT may modulate the effects of higher dietary diversity on the pace of aging. They then ran statistical analysis which provided data suggesting that GGT levels modulate the pace of aging, indicating that increasing dietary diversity, in part, lowers GGT levels and inflammation to slow the pace of aging.
Additional Research Is Required
While the results from this study are promising, the nature of observational studies means that they could not establish causation, they can only show a correlation. Additionally, it is not clear if we can slow the pace of aging by switching from a diet with low dietary diversity in the early years to a more diverse diet later in life.
However, the findings from this study are in line with a study published in the Annals of Neurology from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health finding that a healthier diet is associated with a reduced risk of dementia and a slower pace of aging.
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References/Sources/Materials provided by:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39444810
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7019245
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3921/13/4/394
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?AllField=Belsky&SeriesKey=15318249
