Nutrition, Aging and Inflammation – A Closely Connected Interaction – Healing Practice

How inflammation, aging and diet are linked

inflammation apply not only as biological characteristics for agingbut also like disease risk factor How? ‘Or’ What Alzheimer’s and Cancer. A German research team has succeeded for the first time in describing the development process of such inflammations at the molecular level. It also showed what influence nutrition has in this process.

A working group around professor doctor Francesco Néri and Dr Mahdi Rasa from Leibniz Institute for Aging Research – Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) was able to describe an important regulatory network in the body at the molecular level. This network is influenced by the power supply and feeds the general power supply, inter-organ inflammatory response. The results were recently published in the renowned journal “Cell reports” present.

Diet influences age-related inflammation

the Diet influences many inflammatory responses through the body. This is one of the conclusions that can be drawn from the results of the current study. A targeted and above all low-calorie diet could make it possible to specifically attenuate inflammatory reactions and thus slow down the effects of aging and reduce the risk of many diseases such as cancer.

What is inflammation?

As the scientists involved explain, inflammation is one of the Immune reaction from the body. In itself, this process is useful and aims to Pathogens Where damaged cells to remove from the fabric. Once this task is completed, the inflammation usually decreases again.

When is inflammation considered chronic?

However, things are different chronic inflammation, which are related to age, among others. According to the researchers, these immune reactions are not limited locally to a wound or an organ, but can the whole body affect.

He drives innate immune system its high activity, resulting in long-term low-threshold inflammation. This process is called in medicine inflammatory aging or like inflammatory aging appointed. Such chronic inflammation can have a massive impact on health and contribute to the development of disease.

Why chronic inflammation affects disease risk

“If the immune cells are constantly activated, this can lead to their exhaustion, which poses problems in the event of an infection because the immune response may not be sufficient”comments Professor Dr. Francesco Neri, former research director of the “Epigenetics of Aging” working group at the FLI.

“Age-related inflammation also plays a role in the development of cancer”continues the professor. “In the inflamed tissue, increased cell proliferation can be observed.”

Reduced calorie intake prolongs life

Using mice, the working group was able to understand for the first time how age-related inflammation by some Genoa regulated and maintained.

Previous studies of flies, worms, and monkeys already knew that animals live longer when they tend to live their entire lives. too few calories save too.

This was confirmed again in the current study: mice that 30% less food than a control group were overall fitter, more active and lived three to four months longer, a 10-15% life extension is equivalent to.

A health improvement by a reduced calorie intake has also been observed in humans. Until now, however, it was unclear on what molecular mechanisms this connection is based.

Systemic inflammatory network described for the first time

In the current study, the working group first compared young, four-month-old mice to older, 22-month-old mice. In doing so, the gene activity measured in organs as well as many different tissues including blood, brain, heart, kidney, liver, lungs, muscle, and skin.

“It was our priority to study exactly the signaling pathways involved in the inflammatory response in all tissues”reports Professor Neri. “We wanted to understand inflammatory aging at a systemic level.”

“We found that the inflammatory state in aged mice is characterized by upregulation of genes encoding receptors of the innate immune system.”explains the scientific manager.

According to him, this up-regulation in turn leads to the activation of a number of genes that interferon production regulate. This in turn becomes pro-inflammatory cytokines product.

“Furthermore, they activate Stat1, a kind of master switch for the regulation of genes associated with inflammatory processes – so you can talk about positive feedback that maintains the inflammatory state.”summarizes Professor Neri.

According to their own statements, the Jena research group is the first in the world to do so systemic regulatory network describe.

Calorie intake influences the expression of age-related genes

Based on gene expression mice, the researchers were able to demonstrate that a long-term reduced calorie intake a positive effect almost all organs out of heart. Even in animals that were only put on the diet for two months, a positive effect on genes associated with aging was observed.

Food supplement to improve the intestinal flora

The research work opens up many new approaches to influencing the described processes. On the one hand, we could try to specifically deregulate certain genes, for example with an active substance.

Another approach would be intestinal flora With food supplements such as vitamins or probiotics for targeted strengthening microorganisms in the intestine promote that fight systemic inflammation.

“The low-calorie diet appears to alter the microbiome, which dampens the inflammatory response”emphasizes Professor Neri.

“If dietary supplements also affect microorganisms, we could possibly achieve the same positive effects without a low-calorie diet”, concludes the scientist. However, he stresses that this is still speculation at this stage. (vb)