A healthy diet may be associated with slower biological aging, and following one specific diet is not necessarily required to achieve this. This is the conclusion of German researchers who examined the relationship between 10 different healthy eating patterns and age-related changes in DNA. The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.
The researchers analyzed data from participants in a German population-based study and assessed their diets using 10 commonly used dietary quality scoring systems. These included the Mediterranean and Nordic diets, DASH, MIND, and various forms of plant-based eating. The main analysis included 6,470 people, and the findings were subsequently validated using data from an independent group of participants.
Biological age differs from chronological age: it reflects accumulated changes in the body associated, among other things, with environmental exposures and lifestyle. To assess it, the researchers used so-called epigenetic clocks — methods that estimate biological age based on patterns of chemical modifications to DNA. The analysis included approximately 850,000 sites across the genome.
The researchers found that greater adherence to a healthy diet was associated with slower epigenetic aging. This pattern was observed across all the healthy dietary patterns studied, although the strength of the association varied. At the same time, people who followed one healthy diet did not necessarily follow the others: only a small proportion of participants had high scores across all of the dietary assessment systems.
The researchers also found substantial similarities in the biological processes associated with different dietary patterns. More than 70% of the biological pathways affected were shared across all of the diets studied. These included processes related to cell structure, signaling, and metabolism — important mechanisms involved in aging and the development of chronic diseases. At the same time, individual dietary patterns showed some specific features. For example, DASH was associated with changes in processes related to heart function, while MIND was linked to processes associated with cognitive function and memory.
The association between diet quality and epigenetic aging was more pronounced among smokers. The authors suggest that among people exposed to the substantial negative effects of smoking, the potential benefits of a healthy diet may be more noticeable.
The authors note that the findings support a broader conclusion: for healthy aging, it may be more important to maintain an overall high-quality diet than to search for one “perfect” diet.
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