Should you have missed our Intro and Experiment 1: here you go…
Historically, anti-ageing diets are no inventions of the 21st century. However, over the last few decades they have become increasingly scrutinised and, to some extent, democratised. So whether they are based on older traditions (e.g. the so-called Blue Zone diets) or more recent research (e.g. Atkins or Keto) and variations thereof, they promise rejuvenation beyond any potential weight loss. In contrast, some interventions do not offer a comprehensive approach, but only recommend changing certain eating habits, such as avoiding sugar or refined carbohydrates, or consuming certain nutrients, such as berries, nuts, seeds or spices.
There are already a few scientific studies that have demonstrated the positive effects of fasting, caloric restriction, time-restricted feeding as well as the Mediterranean diet on human biological age (cf. e.g., Waziry et al. 2023) − beyond potential weight loss. However, until now, most studies have been carried out on smallish, relatively homogeneous cohorts. Depending on the design of the diet (and the study), it is also difficult to distinguish the effects of caloric restriction versus the influence of certain foods or food groups. Moreover, findings remain rather paradoxical in terms of biological ageing: for instance, both carbohydrate-rich and carbohydrate-poor diets can have a positive effect on the biological clock (personal genotype could be playing a salient role here…). Finally, it remains unclear to what extent potential benefits are sustainable over the long-term.
As Matt Kaeberlein put it in an interview with Inverse (19.11.2021) “Diets are the dirtiest drug you can imagine because they are changing thousands of things”. Inverse author goes on to say “What Kaeberlin means is that the things we put— or don’t — put in our bodies do have material effects on our biology from the molecular level up. At the same time, our genetic makeup comes into play, further twisting our personal physiological responses to diet.”
So, please keep all this in mind when taking a look at our little experiment and using our robust epiAge test (13 CpGs)!
Today’s test person (N=1; M; chronological age: 31,50; height: 175 cm; weight 90 kg, BMI: 29,4) experienced an impressive decline in biological age (over 3 years) while attempting a ketogenic diet over a period of 100 days. The weight loss was no less impressive: he was able to shed 12 kg!
Of course, this is a totally anecdotal finding and we do not explicitly recommend you try to imitate this feat. But we would be very curious to hear if your diet experiments correlate – at least to some extent – with the findings presented here!
Stay tuned for the next epiAge Experience experiment….
--
Sources
Waziry, R., Ryan, C.P., Corcoran, D.L. et al. Effect of long-term caloric restriction on DNA methylation measures of biological aging in healthy adults from the CALERIE trial. Nat Aging 3, 248–257 (2023).https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-022-00357-y, Online: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-022-00357-y#citeas
Keppler, Nick, Can Fasting or Keto Slow Aging? Scientists are Skeptical, Inverse,19.11.2021. Online: https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/anti-aging-diet-debunk
Mitchell B. Lee, Cristal M. Hill, Alessandro Bitto, and Matt Kaeberlein, Antiaging diets: Separating fact from fiction, Science, 19 Nov 2021, Vol 374,Issue 6570 DOI: 10.1126/science.abe7365. Online: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe7365#tab-citations
Illustration
Jenna Hamra / pexels
Graph / epiAge
Back to all posts
