Special diet that mimics fasting found to 'reverse ageing process' in body

Diets that resemble fasting might make you "two-and-a-half years younger" by reducing your biological age, a new study has found.

Scientists found that a fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) can help with lowering lower insulin resistance, reducing fat in the liver, and slowing immune system ageing.

This type of diet can also lower the chance of getting sick with age-related illnesses like cancer, diabetes, and heart problems. When you add up all these factors up, the fasting-like diet could mean you have a younger biological age.

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The FMD is a five-day diet made by experts at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology in California, USA. It is high in unsaturated fats and low in overall calories, protein, and carbohydrates.

The diet was created to imitate the effects of a water-only fast while still providing the necessary nutrients. This way of eating is meant to be more sustainable for people to continue to follow.

"This is the first study to show that a food-based intervention that does not require chronic dietary or other lifestyle changes can make people biologically younger," said senior author Professor Valter Longo. "This is based on both changes in risk factors for ageing and disease, and on a validated method developed to assess biological age."

Prof Longo and his team looked at how the FMD worked in two clinical trial populations of men and women aged 18 to 70. The participants followed three to four monthly cycles of the FMD, sticking to the diet for five days and then eating a 'normal' diet for 25 days.

During the FMD, they ate things like plant-based soups, energy bars, energy drinks, crisps, and tea, which were all portioned out over the five days. They also took a supplement packed with minerals, vitamins, and essential fatty acids.

A control group was told to eat either a 'normal' or Mediterranean-style diet which is what the FMD participants ate in their 'time-off'.

Published in the journal Nature Communications, the results showed that people in the FMD group had lower risk factors for diabetes, including less insulin resistance and lower HbA1c levels.

They also had less belly and liver fat, which is linked with a lower risk of metabolic syndrome, as well as an increased lymphoid-to-myeloid ratio, which is a sign of a more youthful immune system.

Further analysis of both clinical studies also revealed that the FMD participants had reduced their biological age by two and a half years on average. 'Biological age' measures how well a person's cells and tissues are working, not their actual age.

"This study has shown for the first time evidence of biological age reduction from two different clinical trials, accompanied by evidence of rejuvenation of metabolic and immune function," Prof Longo said.

Professor Sebastian Brandhorst, the first author, said: "Our study also lends more support to the FMD's potential as a short-term, periodic, achievable dietary intervention that can help people lessen their disease risk and improve their health without extensive lifestyle changes."

The USC Leonard Davis research team hopes their work will make more doctors in Europe and the US suggest the FMD to patients with higher disease risk factors, along with 'healthy' people who want other benefits like staying young.

Past studies by Prof Longo showed that doing the FMD for a short time now and then can help make new stem cells and reduce bad effects from chemotherapy. Tests on mice have shown that the FMD can make signs of dementia less severe.

However, this new study is the first to show how the FMD affects insulin resistance, liver fat, how the immune system ages, and biological age.

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