(PatrioticPost.com)- According to a report, a study suggests cutting calories makes you younger.
The authors of the study found that calorie-cutters aged three percent slower, which could reduce their risk of early death as much as quitting smoking.
A third of 220 participants cut their calorie intake by 25% over two years, while the rest ate normally.
It is known that obese people lose weight by cutting calories, but this is the first long-term calorie-cutting study in healthy, non-obese people. It confirms mice and rat studies that cutting calories is one of the best ways to live longer and healthier.
The study showed that new blood tests revealed dieters were aging slower. The test used signs of aging like higher blood pressure and cholesterol in hundreds of people from 26 to 45. Genetic activity matched these aging signs. The final blood test used genetic activity alone to determine aging speed.
Dr. Daniel Belsky, the leader of the study from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York, said that the study found calorie restriction can reduce the pace at which people age biologically.
Slowing biological aging prolongs life and illness. Thus, calorie restriction may help healthy people live longer and healthier.
According to the Nature Aging study, previous research helped New Zealanders cut calories with weekly weight loss sessions.
Three biological age tests examined DNA methylation, the epigenetic changes in cells that turn genes on and off.
According to Hussain Biology, DNA methylation is a process by which methyl groups are added to the DNA molecule. Methylation can change the activity of a DNA segment without changing the sequence.
The volunteers received 27 days of smaller meals, then continued dieting alone, losing 15% of their weight in the first year. Not everyone cut calories by 25%. However, overall, dieters aged two to three percent slower than non-dieters.
Those who cut calories by over 10% slowed aging by about 1%.
