Calorie Restriction, Obesity, and the Aging Process

The question of whether the aging process is slowed by calorie restriction or accelerated by obesity has been hovering in the gerontological field for some time. Now,Correa-Burrowsetal1 present solid observations that can help formulate an answer. They analyzed 205 of the more than1000 participants in the Santiago Longitudinal Study, a longitudinal cohort in which participants were followed up from birth to ages 28 to 31 years. The analysis focused on this subgroup because the data for these individuals were more complete and due to budget limitations. Biological age was assessed using several methods, including 2 biological age estimations by DNA methylation, methylation based estimation of leukocyte telomere length, and cytokines, adipokines, myokines, and growth factor levels. These assessments are generally recognized as valid for estimating the progression of the aging process by the gerontological community. In these participants, the persistence of a high body mass index (BMI) since early childhood or adolescence was associated with an increase in epigenetic age compared with chronological age, ranging from 2.23 years to 4.68 years, depending on the persistence of obesity and the specific epigenetic clock used.