Nutrition and Healthy Aging最新文献

Resveratrol improves healthspan and lifespan in many organisms. Several different targets and mechanisms of action have been proposed to explain the beneficial effects of resveratrol on healthspan and longevity, including the activation of a family of proteins known as sirtuins and its action as a calorie restriction mimetic. In this mini-review, we discuss some of the most recent findings to date in the resveratrol field and suggest three areas of future research based on those results.

Background: There is growing interest in the use of nutrition interventions to improve cognitive function. To determine intervention efficacy, repeated cognitive testing is often required. However, performance on tasks can improve through practice, irrespective of any intervention.

Objective: This study investigated practice effects for commonly used cognitive tasks (immediate and delayed recall, serial subtractions, Stroop and the Sternberg task) to identify appropriate methodology for minimising their impact on nutrition intervention outcomes.

Methods: Twenty-nine healthy young adults completed six repetitions of the cognitive battery (two sessions on each of three separate visits). Subjective measures of mood, motivation and task difficulty were also recorded at each repetition.

Results: Significant practice effects were apparent for all tasks investigated and were attenuated, but not fully eliminated, at later visits compared with the earlier visits. Motivation predicted cognitive performance for the tasks rated most difficult by participants (serial 7s, immediate and delayed recall). While increases in mental fatigue and corresponding decreases in positive mood were observed between test sessions occurring on the same day, there were no negative consequences of long term testing on mood across the duration of the study.

Conclusion: Practice effects were evident for all investigated cognitive tasks, with strongest effects apparent between visits one and two. Methodological recommendations to reduce the impact of practice on the statistical power of future intervention studies have been made, including the use of alternate task forms at each repetition and the provision of a familiarisation visit on a separate day prior to data collection.

Background: Time restricted feeding decreases energy intake without calorie counting and may be a viable option for weight loss. However, the effect of this diet on body weight in obese subjects has never been examined.

Objective: This study investigated the effects of 8-h time restricted feeding on body weight and metabolic disease risk factors in obese adults.

Design: Obese subjects (n = 23) participated in an 8-h time restricted feeding intervention (ad libitum feeding between 10:00 to 18:00 h, water fasting between 18:00 to 10:00 h) for 12 weeks. Weight loss and other outcomes were compared to a matched historical control group (n = 23).

Results: Body weight and energy intake decreased in the time restricted group (-2.6% ± 0.5; -341 ± 53 kcal/d) relative to controls over 12 weeks (P < 0.05). Systolic blood pressure decreased in the time restricted feeding group (-7 ± 2 mm Hg) versus controls (P < 0.05). Fat mass, lean mass, visceral fat mass, diastolic blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting glucose, fasting insulin, HOMA-IR, and homocysteine were not significantly different from controls after 12 weeks (no group×time interaction).

Conclusion: These findings suggest that 8-h time restricted feeding produces mild caloric restriction and weight loss, without calorie counting. It may also offer clinical benefits by reducing blood pressure.

The development of human gut microbiota begins as soon as the neonate leaves the protective environment of the uterus (or maybe in-utero) and is exposed to innumerable microorganisms from the mother as well as the surrounding environment. Concurrently, the host responses to these microbes during early life manifest during the development of an otherwise hitherto immature immune system. The human gut microbiome, which comprises an extremely diverse and complex community of microorganisms inhabiting the intestinal tract, keeps on fluctuating during different stages of life. While these deviations are largely natural, inevitable and benign, recent studies show that unsolicited perturbations in gut microbiota configuration could have strong impact on several features of host health and disease. Our microbiota undergoes the most prominent deviations during infancy and old age and, interestingly, our immune health is also in its weakest and most unstable state during these two critical stages of life, indicating that our microbiota and health develop and age hand-in-hand. However, the mechanisms underlying these interactions are only now beginning to be revealed. The present review summarizes the evidences related to the age-associated changes in intestinal microbiota and vice-versa, mechanisms involved in this bi-directional relationship, and the prospective for development of microbiota-based interventions such as probiotics for healthy aging.

Background: Recent studies suggest curcumin is a promising nutraceutical for improving important clinical and physiological markers of healthy aging, including motor and cognitive function.

Objective: To determine if curcumin supplementation improves motor and cognitive function in healthy middle-aged and older adults.

Methods: 39 healthy men and postmenopausal women (45-74 yrs) were randomized to 12 weeks of placebo (n = 19) or curcumin supplementation (2000 mg/day Longvida^®; n = 20) with motor and cognitive function assessed at week 0 and 12.

Results: Using measures of the NIH Toolbox and other standardized tests, there were no changes in muscle strength and rate of torque development, dexterity, fatigability, mobility, endurance, and balance between the placebo and curcumin groups after 12 weeks (all P > 0.05). Additionally, there were no changes after 12 weeks of placebo and curcumin supplementation in measures of fluid cognitive ability, a cognitive domain that declines with age, including processing speed, executive function, working memory, and episodic memory (all P > 0.3). There were marginal changes in language, a measure of crystallized cognitive ability that is stable with age, following the intervention, wherein reading decoding increased 3% in the curcumin group (post: 2428±35 vs. pre: 2357±34, P = 0.003), but was unchanged in the placebo group (post: 2334±39 vs. pre: 2364±40, P = 0.07).

Conclusions: Overall, 12 weeks of curcumin supplementation does not improve motor and cognitive functions in healthy middle-aged and older adults. It is possible that curcumin may enhance these functions in groups with greater baseline impairments than those studied here, including adults greater than 75 years of age and/or patients with clinical disorders.

Recently, it has become apparent that dietary macronutrient composition has a profound impact on metabolism, health and even lifespan. Work from many laboratories now suggest that dietary protein quality - the precise amino acid composition of the diet, as well as possibly the source of dietary protein - may also be critical in regulating the impact of diet on health. Perhaps in part due to the naturally low methionine content of plants, vegan diets are associated with a decreased risk of diabetes and improved insulin sensitivity, but this association is confounded by the lower overall protein intake of vegans. Here, we test the effect of consuming isocaloric rodent diets with similar amino acid profiles derived from either plant protein or dairy protein. We find that male C57BL/6J mice consuming either diet have similar glycemic control, as assessed by glucose, insulin, and pyruvate tolerance tests, and have similar overall body composition. We conclude that short-term feeding of plant protein has no positive or negative effect on the metabolic health of young male C57BL/6J mice, and suggest that dietary interventions that alter either dietary protein levels or the levels of specific essential amino acids are more likely to improve metabolic health than alterations in dietary protein source.

Background: Individuals with exceptional longevity and their offspring manifest a lower prevalence of age-related diseases than families without longevity. However, the contribution of dietary habits to protection from disease has not been systematically assessed in families with exceptional longevity.

Objective: The aim of this study is to compare dietary patterns between individuals with parental longevity and individals without parental longevity.

Methods: Dietary intake was evaluated using the Block Brief Food Frequency Questionnaire in 234 community dwelling Ashkenazi Jewish adults aged 65 years and older who were participants of the LonGenity study, which enrolls the offspring of parents with exceptional longevity (OPEL) and offspring of parents with usual survival (OPUS).

Results: OPEL constituted 38% of the subjects. The two groups had similar daily intake of total calories (1119 vs. 1218 kcal, p = 0.83), grams of cholesterol (141 g vs. 143 g, p = 0.19), and grams of sodium (1324 g vs.1475 g, p = 0.45), in OPEL vs. OPUS respectively. There were also no significant differences in the intake of other macronutrients, micronutrients, nutritional supplements and consumption of various food groups between OPEL and OPUS after adjustment for age and sex.

Discussion: A healthy diet is associated with a lower risk of several chronic diseases. Our study revealed that dietary intake did not differ between OPEL and OPUS; thus, pointing to the role of longevity genes in protecting from disease among individuals with familial longevity.

Conclusion: The offspring of long-lived parents do not differ in their dietary patterns compared to individuals without parental longevity.

Background: Alternate day fasting (ADF) is a novel diet therapy that reduces body weight, but its effect on bone health remains unknown.

Objective: This study examined the impact of ADF versus traditional daily calorie restriction (CR) on markers of bone metabolism in a 6-month randomized controlled trial.

Methods: Overweight and obese subjects (n = 100) were randomized to 1 of 3 groups for 6 months: 1) ADF (25% energy intake fast day, alternated with 125% intake feast day; 2) CR (75% intake every day); or 3) control (usual intake every day).

Results: Body weight decreased similarly (P < 0.001) by ADF (-7.8±1.2%) and CR (-8.8±1.5%), relative to controls by month 6. Lean mass, total body bone mineral content and total body bone mineral density remained unchanged in all groups. Circulating osteocalcin, bone alkaline phosphatase, and C-terminal telopeptide type I collagen (CTX) did not change in any group. IGF-1 increased (P < 0.01) in the CR group, with no change in the ADF or control group. When the data were sub-analyzed according to menopausal status, there were no differences between premenopausal or postmenopausal women for any marker of bone metabolism.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that 6 months of ADF does not have any deleterious impact on markers of bone metabolism in obese adults with moderate weight loss.

Fundamental questions in nutrition include, "What constitutes a nutritionally balanced diet?", "What are the consequences of failing to achieve diet balance?", and "How does diet balance change across the lifecourse and with individual circumstances?". Answering these questions requires coming to grips with the multidimensionality and dynamic nature of nutritional requirements, foods and diets, and the complex relationships between nutrition and health, while at the same time avoiding becoming overwhelmed by complexity. Here we illustrate the use of an integrating framework for taming the complexity of nutrition, the Geometric Framework for Nutrition (GFN), and show how this might be used to untap the full potential for nutrition to provide targeted primary interventions and treatments for the chronic diseases of aging. We first briefly introduce the concepts behind GFN, then provide an example of how GFN has been used to relate nutrition to various behavioural, physiological and health outcomes in a large mouse experiment, and end by suggesting a translational pathway to human health.