People who restrict calories have 'younger' hearts

A new study suggests that calorie restriction plays an important role in delaying aging in adults. In fact, the hearts of people who follow a low-calorie, yet nutritionally balanced, diet resemble those of younger people, and tend to have more desirable levels of some markers of inflammation and fibrosis, according to the Jan. 17th paper in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

"Eating less, if it is a high-quality diet, will improve your health, delay aging, and increase your chance of living a long, healthy and happy life," said Luigi Fontana, MD, PhD, from the Washington University School of Medicine and the Italian National Institute of Health.

Rather than try to randomize volunteers to different diets and then hope that they will stick to them for years, the researchers, including first author Timothy E. Meyer, PhD, compared 25 people who already had been following caloric restriction for an average of six years (consuming about 1,400 to 2,000 calories per day) with 25 similar control subjects who were eating typical Western diets (about 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day).

Hearts tend to stiffen and pump less effectively as people get older, but ultrasound examinations showed that the hearts of the people on caloric restriction appeared more elastic than those of the control subjects; that is, the hearts relaxed between beats in a way that is similar to the hearts of younger people. In addition, several heart disease risk factors and inflammatory markers—blood pressure, C-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-á), and transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-â1)—were lower in the caloric restriction group than in the Western diet group.

Dr. Fontana, who designed and led the study, emphasized that caloric restriction does not mean simply eating less--intake needs to resemble the traditional Mediterranean diet, which is based on a wide variety of vegetables, olive oil, beans, whole grains, fish and fruit. That means avoiding refined and processed foods, soft drinks, desserts, free sugars, white bread and white pasta.

Daniel E. Forman, MD, FACC, from the Boston Medical Center, who was not connected with this study, says that the researchers have presented exciting data showing benefits of caloric restriction.

"These data provide insight into the impact of diet on intrinsic myocardial function. Our normal Western diet likely induces inflammatory peptides that bring about changes in ventricular histology and function, including higher collagen content and associated tissue stiffening. Nutritionally balanced caloric restriction may constitute a key means to modify these detrimental patterns and mitigate age-related morbidity and mortality," he explains.

People who restrict calories have 'younger' hearts