ANIMALS that eat less appear to live longer – and now we know of a mechanism that explains why.
Hearts of old mice fed a calorie restricted diet have a fifth fewer age-related changes in gene expression (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.232308999).
Tomas Prolla and a team at the University of Wisconsin compared five-month-old and 30-month-old mouse hearts, and found that as hearts get older they shift away from using slow-burning, high-energy fatty acids for energy to faster-burning, lower-energy carbohydrates. That leaves older hearts with much less energy to perform the same work.
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But mice fed a quarter less food kept burning the fatty acids for longer, keeping their hearts healthy.