Your diet can trigger genetic effects that cause you to age more rapidly, according to a recently completed study at the University of Southern California, Fox News reports.The study's authors, Sean Curran and Shanshan Pang, identified a collection of genes that allow an organism to adapt to different diets and showed that without them, even minor dietary changes can cause premature aging, even death.

The researchers also revealed a reason why some diets work for specific groups of people and are ineffective for others.

In the study, for example, the scientists identified a gene called alh-6 that delayed the effects of aging depending on what type of diet a worm was fed, by protecting it against diet-induced defects. The worm, known as the Caenorhabditis elegans, has been used in genetic research for decades because many of its genes have similar functions in humans. But the researchers do not know precisely what element of the worm's diet triggered the mitochondrial defects that resulted in advanced aging.

A study last year looked at 3,500 people and the two expressions of a gene, the C and T versions of APOA2, and found that people who had the C version of the gene and ate a diet high in saturated fats gained weight. But those with the T version were less vulnerable to the high-fat diet.

"Imagine one day," Curran said, "when an infant is born, its genome is sequenced and optimal diets can be predicted accurately."