The search for the “fountain of youth” has been on for centuries, if not longer, but the answer has always been elusive. But we may be inching closer to finding the answer, according to the latest research.
With the advancements in science, we are slowly beginning to understand our bodies on a deeper level. As a result, recent studies have found that proteins called sirtuins may be the answer to staying young for as long as possible.
You may have heard people say that drinking red wine helps you live longer, and there may be some truth to that because it has a chemical called resveratrol which helps stimulate sirtuins in the brain. Similarly, sirtuin production is said to increase with a low-calorie diet.
But the theory that lower calorie consumption can help you live longer isn’t new by any means. If you go all the way back to the 18th century, you’ll find Kaibara Ekiken, a Japanese philosopher and scientist who believed in the idea of low-calorie diets and ended up living to the ripe old age of 84 – twice the average life expectancy than at the time he died!
How Does it Work?
It is well-known fact that high-calorie diets can cause weight gain, leading to obesity. Obesity is linked to a number of health issues from diabetes and heart disease, to much more – many of which carry an increased risk of premature death. Therefore, doesn’t it make sense to theorize that a low-calorie diet will do the opposite?
According to developmental biologist Dr. Shin-ichiro Imai, the links between a low-calorie diet and a longer life span are more than just a theory – it has already been found in many animal models, they say. In fact, Imai and a few others at the Washington University’s St. Louis School of Medicine recently published a study in the journal of Cell Metabolism where they argued that a specific type of sirtuin called SIRT1, influences the brain to slow down aging by stimulating areas in the hippocampus to trigger changes in the skeletal muscle.
“We found that only the mice that overexpressed SIRT1 in the brain (called BRASTO) had significant lifespan extension and delay in aging, just like normal mice reared under dietary restriction regimens,” Imai said.
Previous studies on mice showed that those who had a higher level of sirtuins were able to live about 15% longer. Imai’s study found that mice that were 24 months old (that’s about 70 years in comparison to a human), the BRASTO mice had brain activity that was similar to a 5-month-old mouse. If we were to make a direct comparison, this means that humans could extend their lives by up to 14 years in women and 7 years in men.
The Other Side of the Argument
While the studies produced by Imai and a few others seem promising, the majority of scientists aren’t convinced. It doesn’t help that a number of studies have come out that have proven that low-calorie diets don’t really do much in terms of extending lifespans.
The most damning of which was a 2014 study by the National Institute on Aging which studied the effects of calorie restriction on rhesus macaques. The study found that restricting the monkey’s diet did not make them age slowly at all. However, the male monkeys in the study were so thin that they were similar to a 9-foot-tall human male that weighed 130 pounds. With a 7.8 body mass index, this would be considered underweight. Therefore, a low-calorie diet may not have been what was needed. Still, considering that monkeys are the closest living relative to human beings (much closer than mice), this study might shed better light on the theory.
But, if we were to believe an earlier study conducted in 2009 by the University of Wisconsin, calorie restriction does slow down the aging process in monkeys. That study also found that the monkeys who were given calorie-restricted diets had lower incidences of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and brain atrophy.
The caveat is that the 2009 study failed to take into consideration a few monkeys who died, seemingly unrelated to age. The New York Times noted that this skewed the results of the study to show that low-calorie diets did increase lifespan, when it may not have been entirely accurate.
The final knock to the theory of sirtuins being the answer to living a longer life comes from the fact that high levels of it have been linked to an increase in panic and anxiety disorders. So, it seems like it’s time to go back to the drawing board when it comes to finding that elusive “fountain of youth”!
