According to recent study, following a vegan diet even for two months can reduce your biological age by several years.
Researchers discovered that consuming just vegan cuisine for eight weeks resulted in lower estimates of biological age.
Twenty-one pairs of adult identical twins participated in the trial run by the American team.
Based on levels of DNA methylation, a sort of chemical change of DNA that modifies gene expression but not DNA itself, their findings were reported in the journal BMC Medicine.
Age-related increases in DNA methylation have been linked to aging, according to earlier studies.
For eight weeks, the researchers gave one half of each twin pair instructions to follow an omnivorous diet consisting of 170–225 grams of meat, one egg, and 1.5 servings of dairy per day, while the other half followed a vegan diet for the same amount of time in order to study the molecular effects of a brief vegan diet.
Averaging forty years old, the participants’ body mass index (BMI) was twenty-six kilograms per square meter; women made up seventy-seven percent of the sample.
Participants in the study received nutrition instruction before eating meals that had been prepared for them for the first four weeks of the experiment. After that, they cooked their own meals for the remaining four weeks.
The effects of food on DNA methylation levels were examined by the researchers through the analysis of blood samples taken from study participants at the beginning, week four, and week eight.
The researchers estimated the biological ages of the subjects and their organ systems using DNA methylation levels.
At study’s conclusion, the researchers noticed drops in those who followed a vegan diet’s estimates of biological age, or what are known as epigenetic ageing clocks, but not in those who followed an omnivorous diet.
“We also observed decreases in the ages of the heart, hormone, liver, and inflammatory and metabolic systems of participants who ate a vegan, but not an omnivorous diet, for eight weeks,” stated Professor Christopher Gardner of Stanford University in California.
The researchers cautioned that it is unknown how much the dietary components of the participants can account for the disparities seen between them who followed various diets.
They observed that because there were variations in the calorie amount of meals over the first four weeks of the trial, individuals who followed a vegan diet lost an average of two kilograms (4.4 pounds) more than those who followed an omnivore diet.
The researchers hypothesize that the observed variations in epigenetic age between the two groups may have been caused by the weight loss variances.
“More research is needed to investigate the relationship between dietary composition, weight, and aging, in addition to the long-term effects of vegan diets,” stated TruDiagnostic Inc.’s corresponding author, Dr. Varun Dwaraka [CORRECT].
