eating less rejuvenates … even the immune system – breaking latest news

We are publishing a preview of an article in the new Corriere Salute. You can read the full text on the issue at newsstands for free on Thursday 23 June or in Pdf on the Digital Edition of the «Corriere della Sera».

A confirmation and a novelty: that calorie restriction slowed down the aging process was known, now a study published in the journal Science also shows that it “rejuvenates” the immune system. A group of researchers from Yale University (USA) has described the effects of moderation at the table and the physiological processes that make it possible that even a diet made up of modest sacrifices can obtain surprising benefits. A moderate weight loss, in fact, is able to combine the effects of several drugs and now scientists have begun to understand how this is possible. The anti-aging effect of calorie restriction was also known thanks to a multicenter study called CALERIE (acronym for “global evaluation of the long-term effects of calorie reduction”) which began in 2007. 140 people between 20 and 50 years (not obese) had been asked to lose weight. By the end of the two-year observation period, the participants had dropped an average of 10 kilos, about 14% of their initial weight. From the data of that experimentation, collateral insights were born, which from time to time investigated specific aspects.

«Caloric reduction acts on many metabolic and molecular factors – explains Luigi Fontana, director of the Center for longevity and health of the University of Sydney and co-author of many researches connected to the CALERIE trial -: on the tested subjects a reduction of all inflammatory indices and an enhancement of the homeostatic mechanisms that “rejuvenate “Cells. Over the years we have shown that weight loss is linked to lower insulin production (a very powerful risk factor for aging and cancer), rejuvenation of the heart (which becomes more elastic) and a reduction in many underlying pathological processes of cardiovascular diseases, tumors, strokes and cognitive impairment “.

However, Yale researchers studied a subgroup of 25 people in the CALERIE trial and showed that calorie restriction had also rejuvenated their immune system by acting on the thymus (a gland above the heart) thanks to a protein called PLA2G7. The thymus produces thymocytes, the precursors of T lymphocytes (the “conductors” of the immune response), but over the years it loses volume and efficiency. Through magnetic resonance, the researchers noted, in people who had lost weight, a lesser involution of the thymus than in the control group: the diet was able to slow down the aging of the gland and, consequently, of the immune system. Scientists would have expected to find some difference in the cells produced by the thymus showing this effect, but the sequencing of the genes showed nothing.

You can continue reading the article in Corriere Salute on newsstands for free on Thursday 23 June or in Pdf in the Digital Edition of Corriere della Sera.