Researchers found that diets high in essential nutrients and low in added sugars can reduce cellular aging, as shown by “epigenetic clock” measurements. High sugar consumption, however, accelerates biological aging, underscoring the importance of a nutrient-rich diet for longevity.
Researchers at UC San Francisco have discovered a connection between adhering to a nutrient-rich diet, particularly one low in added sugar, and maintaining a younger biological age at the cellular level.
They looked at how three different measures of healthy eating affected an “epigenetic clock” – a biochemical test that can approximate both health and lifespan – and found that the better people ate, the younger their cells looked. Even when people ate healthy diets, each gram of added sugar they consumed was associated with an increase in their epigenetic age.
“The diets we examined align with existing recommendations for preventing disease and promoting health, and they highlight the potency of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory nutrients in particular,” said Dorothy Chiu, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Health and first author of the study, which appears July 29 in DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.22749
Funding: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD073568); National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R56HL141878); National Institute on Aging (R56AG059677 and R01AG059677]; Lisa Stone Pritzker Foundation; National Center for Complementary & Integrative Health (T32AT0039970).