aging
Changes in Human Microbiome Precede Alzheimer’s Cognitive Declines
Posted on by Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.
In people with Alzheimer’s disease, the underlying changes in the brain associated with dementia typically begin many years—or even decades—before a diagnosis. While pinpointing the exact causes of Alzheimer’s remains a major research challenge, they likely involve a combination of genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. Now an NIH-funded study elucidates the role of another likely culprit that you may not have considered: the human gut microbiome, the trillions of diverse bacteria and other microbes that live primarily in our intestines [1].
Earlier studies had showed that the gut microbiomes of people with symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease differ from those of healthy people with normal cognition [2]. What this new work advances is that these differences arise early on in people who will develop Alzheimer’s, even before any obvious symptoms appear.
The science still has a ways to go before we’ll know if specific dietary changes can alter the gut microbiome and modify its influence on the brain in the right ways. But what’s exciting about this finding is it raises the possibility that doctors one day could test a patient’s stool sample to determine if what’s present from their gut microbiome correlates with greater early risk for Alzheimer’s dementia. Such a test would help doctors detect Alzheimer’s earlier and intervene sooner to slow or ideally even halt its advance.
The new findings, reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine, come from a research team led by Gautam Dantas and Beau Ances, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. Ances is a clinician who treats and studies people with Alzheimer’s; Dantas is a basic researcher and expert on the gut microbiome.
The pair struck up a conversation one day about the possible connection between the gut microbiome and Alzheimer’s. While they knew about the earlier studies suggesting a link, they were surprised that nobody had looked at the gut microbiomes of people in the earliest, so-called preclinical, stages of the disease. That’s when dementia isn’t detectable, but the brain has formed amyloid-beta plaques, which are associated with Alzheimer’s.
To take a look, they enrolled 164 healthy volunteers, age 68 to 94, who performed normally on standard tests of cognition. They also collected stool samples from each volunteer and thoroughly analyzed them all the microbes from their gut microbiome. Study participants also kept food diaries and underwent extensive testing, including two types of brain scans, to look for signs of amyloid-beta plaques and tau protein accumulation that precede the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms.
Among the volunteers, about a third (49 individuals) unfortunately had signs of early Alzheimer’s disease. And, as it turned out, their microbiomes showed differences, too.
The researchers found that those with preclinical Alzheimer’s disease had markedly different assemblages of gut bacteria. Their microbiomes differed in many of the bacterial species present. Those species-level differences also point to differences in the way their microbiomes would be expected to function at a metabolic level. These microbiome changes were observed even though the individuals didn’t seem to have any apparent differences in their diets.
The team also found that the microbiome changes correlated with amyloid-beta and tau levels in the brain. But they did not find any relationship to degenerative changes in the brain, which tend to happen later in people with Alzheimer’s.
The team is now conducting a five-year study that will follow volunteers to get a better handle on whether the differences observed in the gut microbiome are a cause or a consequence of the brain changes seen in Alzheimer’s. If it’s a cause, this discovery would raise the tantalizing possibility that specially formulated probiotics or fecal transplants that promote the growth of “good” bacteria over “bad” bacteria in the gut might slow the development of Alzheimer’s and its most devastating symptoms. It’s an exciting area of research and definitely one worth following in the years ahead.
References:
[1] Gut microbiome composition may be an indicator of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Ferreiro AL, Choi J, Ryou J, Newcomer EP, Thompson R, Bollinger RM, Hall-Moore C, Ndao IM, Sax L, Benzinger TLS, Stark SL, Holtzman DM, Fagan AM, Schindler SE, Cruchaga C, Butt OH, Morris JC, Tarr PI, Ances BM, Dantas G. Sci Transl Med. 2023 Jun 14;15(700):eabo2984. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abo2984. Epub 2023 Jun 14. PMID: 37315112.
[2] Gut microbiome alterations in Alzheimer’s disease. Vogt NM, Kerby RL, Dill-McFarland KA, Harding SJ, Merluzzi AP, Johnson SC, Carlsson CM, Asthana S, Zetterberg H, Blennow K, Bendlin BB, Rey FE. Sci Rep. 2017 Oct 19;7(1):13537. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-13601-y. PMID: 29051531; PMCID: PMC5648830.
Links:
Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (National Institute on Aging/NIH)
Video: How Alzheimer’s Changes the Brain (NIA)
Dantas Lab (Washington University School of Medicine. St. Louis)
Ances Bioimaging Laboratory (Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis)
NIH Support: National Institute on Aging; National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Immune Resilience is Key to a Long and Healthy Life
Posted on by Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.
Do you feel as if you or perhaps your family members are constantly coming down with illnesses that drag on longer than they should? Or, maybe you’re one of those lucky people who rarely becomes ill and, if you do, recovers faster than others.
It’s clear that some people generally are more susceptible to infectious illnesses, while others manage to stay healthier or bounce back more quickly, sometimes even into old age. Why is this? A new study from an NIH-supported team has an intriguing answer [1]. The difference, they suggest, may be explained in part by a new measure of immunity they call immune resilience—the ability of the immune system to rapidly launch attacks that defend effectively against infectious invaders and respond appropriately to other types of inflammatory stressors, including aging or other health conditions, and then quickly recover, while keeping potentially damaging inflammation under wraps.
The findings in the journal Nature Communications come from an international team led by Sunil Ahuja, University of Texas Health Science Center and the Department of Veterans Affairs Center for Personalized Medicine, both in San Antonio. To understand the role of immune resilience and its effect on longevity and health outcomes, the researchers looked at multiple other studies including healthy individuals and those with a range of health conditions that challenged their immune systems.
By looking at multiple studies in varied infectious and other contexts, they hoped to find clues as to why some people remain healthier even in the face of varied inflammatory stressors, ranging from mild to more severe. But to understand how immune resilience influences health outcomes, they first needed a way to measure or grade this immune attribute.
The researchers developed two methods for measuring immune resilience. The first metric, a laboratory test called immune health grades (IHGs), is a four-tier grading system that calculates the balance between infection-fighting CD8+ and CD4+ T-cells. IHG-I denotes the best balance tracking the highest level of resilience, and IHG-IV denotes the worst balance tracking the lowest level of immune resilience. An imbalance between the levels of these T cell types is observed in many people as they age, when they get sick, and in people with autoimmune diseases and other conditions.
The researchers also developed a second metric that looks for two patterns of expression of a select set of genes. One pattern associated with survival and the other with death. The survival-associated pattern is primarily related to immune competence, or the immune system’s ability to function swiftly and restore activities that encourage disease resistance. The mortality-associated genes are closely related to inflammation, a process through which the immune system eliminates pathogens and begins the healing process but that also underlies many disease states.
Their studies have shown that high expression of the survival-associated genes and lower expression of mortality-associated genes indicate optimal immune resilience, correlating with a longer lifespan. The opposite pattern indicates poor resilience and a greater risk of premature death. When both sets of genes are either low or high at the same time, immune resilience and mortality risks are more moderate.
In the newly reported study initiated in 2014, Ahuja and his colleagues set out to assess immune resilience in a collection of about 48,500 people, with or without various acute, repetitive, or chronic challenges to their immune systems. In an earlier study, the researchers showed that this novel way to measure immune status and resilience predicted hospitalization and mortality during acute COVID-19 across a wide age spectrum [2].
The investigators have analyzed stored blood samples and publicly available data representing people, many of whom were healthy volunteers, who had enrolled in different studies conducted in Africa, Europe, and North America. Volunteers ranged in age from 9 to 103 years. They also evaluated participants in the Framingham Heart Study, a long-term effort to identify common factors and characteristics that contribute to cardiovascular disease.
To examine people with a wide range of health challenges and associated stresses on their immune systems, the team also included participants who had influenza or COVID-19, and people living with HIV. They also included kidney transplant recipients, people with lifestyle factors that put them at high risk for sexually transmitted infections, and people who’d had sepsis, a condition in which the body has an extreme and life-threatening response following an infection.
The question in all these contexts was the same: How well did the two metrics of immune resilience predict an individual’s health outcomes and lifespan? The short answer is that immune resilience, longevity, and better health outcomes tracked together well. Those with metrics indicating optimal immune resilience generally had better health outcomes and lived longer than those who had lower scores on the immunity grading scale. Indeed, those with optimal immune resilience were more likely to:
- Live longer,
- Resist HIV infection or the progression from HIV to AIDS,
- Resist symptomatic influenza,
- Resist a recurrence of skin cancer after a kidney transplant,
- Survive COVID-19, and
- Survive sepsis.
The study also revealed other interesting findings. While immune resilience generally declines with age, some people maintain higher levels of immune resilience as they get older for reasons that aren’t yet known, according to the researchers. Some people also maintain higher levels of immune resilience despite the presence of inflammatory stress to their immune systems such as during HIV infection or acute COVID-19. People of all ages can show high or low immune resilience. The study also found that higher immune resilience is more common in females than it is in males.
The findings suggest that there is a lot more to learn about why people differ in their ability to preserve optimal immune resilience. With further research, it may be possible to develop treatments or other methods to encourage or restore immune resilience as a way of improving general health, according to the study team.
The researchers suggest it’s possible that one day checkups of a person’s immune resilience could help us to understand and predict an individual’s health status and risk for a wide range of health conditions. It could also help to identify those individuals who may be at a higher risk of poor outcomes when they do get sick and may need more aggressive treatment. Researchers may also consider immune resilience when designing vaccine clinical trials.
A more thorough understanding of immune resilience and discovery of ways to improve it may help to address important health disparities linked to differences in race, ethnicity, geography, and other factors. We know that healthy eating, exercising, and taking precautions to avoid getting sick foster good health and longevity; in the future, perhaps we’ll also consider how our immune resilience measures up and take steps to achieve or maintain a healthier, more balanced, immunity status.
References:
[1] Immune resilience despite inflammatory stress promotes longevity and favorable health outcomes including resistance to infection. Ahuja SK, Manoharan MS, Lee GC, McKinnon LR, Meunier JA, Steri M, Harper N, Fiorillo E, Smith AM, Restrepo MI, Branum AP, Bottomley MJ, Orrù V, Jimenez F, Carrillo A, Pandranki L, Winter CA, Winter LA, Gaitan AA, Moreira AG, Walter EA, Silvestri G, King CL, Zheng YT, Zheng HY, Kimani J, Blake Ball T, Plummer FA, Fowke KR, Harden PN, Wood KJ, Ferris MT, Lund JM, Heise MT, Garrett N, Canady KR, Abdool Karim SS, Little SJ, Gianella S, Smith DM, Letendre S, Richman DD, Cucca F, Trinh H, Sanchez-Reilly S, Hecht JM, Cadena Zuluaga JA, Anzueto A, Pugh JA; South Texas Veterans Health Care System COVID-19 team; Agan BK, Root-Bernstein R, Clark RA, Okulicz JF, He W. Nat Commun. 2023 Jun 13;14(1):3286. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-38238-6. PMID: 37311745.
[2] Immunologic resilience and COVID-19 survival advantage. Lee GC, Restrepo MI, Harper N, Manoharan MS, Smith AM, Meunier JA, Sanchez-Reilly S, Ehsan A, Branum AP, Winter C, Winter L, Jimenez F, Pandranki L, Carrillo A, Perez GL, Anzueto A, Trinh H, Lee M, Hecht JM, Martinez-Vargas C, Sehgal RT, Cadena J, Walter EA, Oakman K, Benavides R, Pugh JA; South Texas Veterans Health Care System COVID-19 Team; Letendre S, Steri M, Orrù V, Fiorillo E, Cucca F, Moreira AG, Zhang N, Leadbetter E, Agan BK, Richman DD, He W, Clark RA, Okulicz JF, Ahuja SK. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2021 Nov;148(5):1176-1191. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2021.08.021. Epub 2021 Sep 8. PMID: 34508765; PMCID: PMC8425719.
Links:
COVID-19 Research (NIH)
HIV Info (NIH)
Sepsis (National Institute of General Medical Sciences/NIH)
Sunil Ahuja (University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio)
Framingham Heart Study (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute/NIH)
“A Secret to Health and Long Life? Immune Resilience, NIAID Grantees Report,” NIAID Now Blog, June 13, 2023
NIH Support: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Institute on Aging; National Institute of Mental Health; National Institute of General Medical Sciences; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
To Prevent a Stroke, Household Chores and Leisurely Strolls May Help
Posted on by Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.
As we get older, unfortunately our chances of having a stroke rise. While there’s obviously no way to turn back the clock on our age, fortunately there are ways to lower our risk of a stroke and that includes staying physically active. Take walks, ride a bike, play a favorite sport. According to our current exercise guidelines for American adults, the goal is to get in at least two and a half hours each week of moderate-intensity physical activity as well as two days of muscle-strengthening activity [1].
But a new study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, shows that reducing the chances of a stroke as we get older doesn’t necessarily require heavy aerobic exercise or a sweat suit [2]. For those who are less mobile or less interested in getting out to exercise, the researchers discovered that just spending time doing light-intensity physical activity—such as tending to household chores—“significantly” protects against stroke.
The study also found you don’t have to dedicate whole afternoons to tidying up around the house to protect your health. It helps to just get up out of your chair for five or 10 minutes at a time throughout the day to straighten up a room, sweep the floor, fold the laundry, step outside to water the garden, or just take a leisurely stroll.
That may sound simple, but consider that the average American adult now spends on average six and a half hours per day just sitting [3]. That comes to nearly two days per week on average, much to the detriment of our health and wellbeing. Indeed, the study found that middle-aged and older people who were sedentary for 13 hours or more hours per day had a 44 percent increased risk of stroke.
These latest findings come from Steven Hooker, San Diego State University, CA, and his colleagues on the NIH-supported Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study. Launched in 2003, REGARDS continues to follow over time more than 30,000 Black and white participants aged 45 and older.
Hooker and colleagues wanted to know more about the amount and intensity of exercise required to prevent a stroke. Interestingly, the existing data were relatively weak, in part because prior studies looking at the associations between physical activity and stroke risk relied on self-reported data, which don’t allow for precise measures. What’s more, the relationship between time spent sitting and stroke risk also remained unknown.
To get answers, Hooker and team focused on 7,607 adults enrolled in the REGARDS study. Rather than relying on self-reported physical activity data, team members asked participants to wear a hip-mounted accelerometer—a device that records how fast people move—during waking hours for seven days between May 2009 and January 2013.
The average age of participants was 63. Men and women were represented about equally in the study, while about 70 percent of participants were white and 30 percent were Black.
Over the more than seven years of the study, 286 participants suffered a stroke. The researchers then analyzed all the accelerometer data, including the amount and intensity of their physical activity over the course of a normal week. They then related those data to their risk of having a stroke over the course of the study.
The researchers found, as anticipated, that adults who spent the most time doing moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity were less likely to have a stroke than those who spent the least time physically active. But those who spent the most time sitting also were at greater stroke risk, whether they got their weekly exercise in or not.
Those who regularly sat still for longer periods—17 minutes or more at a time—had a 54 percent increase in stroke risk compared to those who more often sat still for less than eight minutes. After adjusting for the time participants spent sitting, those who more often had shorter periods of moderate-to-vigorous activity—less than 10 minutes at a time—still had significantly lower stroke risk. But, once the amount of time spent sitting was taken into account, longer periods of more vigorous activity didn’t make a difference.
While high blood pressure, diabetes, and myriad other factors also contribute to a person’s cumulative risk of stroke, the highlighted paper does bring some good actionable news. For each hour spent doing light-intensity physical activity instead of sitting, a person can reduce his or her stroke risk.
The bad news, of course, is that each extra hour spent sitting per day comes with an increased risk for stroke. This bad news shouldn’t be taken lightly. In the U.S., almost 800,000 people have a stroke each year. That’s one person every 40 seconds with, on average, one death every four minutes. Globally, stroke is the second most common cause of death and third most common cause of disability in people, killing more than 6.5 million each year.
If you’re already meeting the current exercise guidelines for adults, keep up the good work. If not, this paper shows you can still do something to lower your stroke risk. Make a habit throughout the day of getting up out of your chair for a mere five or 10 minutes to straighten up a room, sweep the floor, fold the laundry, step outside to water the garden, or take a leisurely stroll. It could make a big difference to your health as you age.
References:
[1] How much physical activity do adults need? Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. June 2, 2022.
[2] Association of accelerometer-measured sedentary time and physical activity with risk of stroke among US adults. Hooker SP, Diaz KM, Blair SN, Colabianchi N, Hutto B, McDonnell MN, Vena JE, Howard VJ. JAMA Netw Open. 2022 Jun 1;5(6):e2215385.
[3] Trends in sedentary behavior among the US population, 2001-2016. Yang L, Cao C, Kantor ED, Nguyen LH, Zheng X, Park Y, Giovannucci EL, Matthews CE, Colditz GA, Cao Y. JAMA. 2019 Apr 23;321(16):1587-1597.
Links:
Stroke (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke/NIH)
REGARDS Study (University of Alabama at Birmingham)
NIH Support: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; National Institute on Aging
Advancing Access to Hearing Health Care
Posted on by Debara L. Tucci, M.D., M.S., M.B.A., National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
By 2050, the World Health Organization estimates that more than 700 million people—or one in every 10 people around the globe—will have disabling hearing loss. In the United States alone, hearing loss affects an estimated 30 million people [1]. Hearing loss can be frustrating, isolating, and even dangerous. It is also associated with dementia, depression, anxiety, reduced mobility, and falls.
Although hearing technologies, such as hearing aids, have improved, not everyone has equal access to these advancements. In fact, though hearing aids and other assistive devices can significantly improve quality of life, only one in four U.S. adults who could benefit from these devices has ever used one. Why? People commonly report encountering economic barriers, such as the high cost of hearing aids and limited access to hearing health care. For some, the reasons are more personal. They may not believe that hearing aids are effective, or they may worry about a perceived negative association with aging. [2].
As the lead federal agency supporting research initiatives to prevent, detect, and treat hearing loss, NIH’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) conducts and funds research that identifies ways to break down barriers to hearing health care. Decades of NIDCD research informed a recent landmark announcement by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) creating a new category of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. When the regulation takes effect (expected in 2022), millions of people who have trouble hearing will be able to purchase less expensive hearing aids without a medical exam, prescription, or fitting by an audiologist.
This exciting development has been on the horizon at NIDCD for some time. Back in 2009, NIDCD’s Working Group on Accessible and Affordable Hearing Health Care for Adults with Mild to Moderate Hearing Loss created a blueprint for research priorities.
The working group’s blueprint led to NIDCD funding of more than 60 research projects spanning the landscape of accessible and affordable hearing health care issues. One study showed that people with hearing loss can independently adjust the settings [3] on their hearing devices in response to changing acoustic environments and, when given the ability to control their own hearing aid settings, they were generally more satisfied with the sound of the devices than with the audiologist fit [4].
In 2017, the first randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial comparing an over-the-counter delivery model [5] of hearing aids with traditional fitting by an audiologist also found that hearing aid users in both groups reported similar benefits. A 2019 follow-up study [6] confirmed these results, supporting the viability of a direct-to-consumer service delivery model. A small-business research grant funded by NIDCD led to the first FDA-approved self-fitting hearing aid.
Meanwhile, in 2016, NIDCD co-sponsored a consensus report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). The report, Hearing Health Care for Adults: Priorities for Improving Access and Affordability, which was developed by an independent expert panel, recommended that the FDA create and regulate a new category of over-the-counter hearing devices to improve access to affordable hearing aids for adults with perceived mild-to-moderate hearing loss. These devices will not be intended for children or for adults with more severe hearing loss.
In sum, this targeted portfolio of NIDCD-funded research—together with the research blueprint and the NASEM consensus report—provided a critical foundation for the 2021 FDA rule creating the new class of OTC hearing aids. As a result of these research and policy efforts, this FDA rule will make some types of hearing aids less expensive and easier to obtain, potentially improving the health, safety, and well-being of millions of Americans.
Transforming hearing health care for adults in the U.S. remains a public health priority. The NIH applauds the scientists who provided critical evidence leading to the new category of hearing aids, and NIDCD encourages them to redouble their efforts. Gaps in hearing health care access remain to be closed.
The NIDCD actively solicits applications for research projects to fill these gaps and continue identifying barriers to care and ways to improve access. The NIDCD will also continue to help the public understand the importance of hearing health care with resources on its website, such as Hearing: A Gateway to Our World video and the Adult Hearing Health Care webpage.
References:
[1] Hearing loss prevalence in the United States. Lin F, Niparko J, Ferrucci L. Arch Intern Med. 2011 Nov 14;171(20):1851-1852.
[2] Research drives more accessible, affordable hearing care. Tucci DL, King K. The Hearing Journal. May 2020.
[3] A “Goldilocks” approach to hearing aid self-fitting: Ear-canal output and speech intelligibility index. Mackersie C, Boothroyd A, Lithgow, A. Ear and Hearing. Jan 2019.
[4] Self-adjusted amplification parameters produce large between-subject variability and preserve speech intelligibility. Nelson PB, Perry TT, Gregan M, VanTasell, D. Trends in Hearing. 7 Sep 2018.
[5] The effects of service-delivery model and purchase price on hearing-aid outcomes in older adults: A randomized double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial. Humes LE, Rogers SE, Quigley TM, Main AK, Kinney DL, Herring C. American Journal of Audiology. 1 Mar 2017.
[6] A follow-up clinical trial evaluating the consumer-decides service delivery model. Humes LE, Kinney DL, Main AK, Rogers SE. American Journal of Audiology. 15 Mar 2019.
Links:
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) (NIH)
Funded Research Projects on Accessible and Affordable Hearing Health Care (NIDCD)
Adult Hearing Health Care (NIDCD)
[Note: Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak has asked the heads of NIH’s Institutes and Centers (ICs) to contribute occasional guest posts to the blog to highlight some of the interesting science that they support and conduct. This is the ninth in the series of NIH IC guest posts that will run until a new permanent NIH director is in place.]
Biology of Aging Study Shows Why Curbing Calories Counts
Posted on by Richard J. Hodes, M.D., National Institute on Aging
The NIH’s National Institute on Aging (NIA) broadly invests in research to find ways to help people live longer and healthier. As people age, they are more likely to have multiple chronic diseases, and NIA-supported research studies reflect a strong focus on geroscience. This advancing area of science seeks to understand the mechanisms that make aging a major risk factor and driver of common chronic conditions and diseases of older people.
More than 85 years ago, researchers at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, observed that some lab rodents lived longer when fed a lower calorie diet that otherwise had the appropriate nutrients [1]. Since then, many scientists have studied calorie restriction to shed light on the various biological mechanisms that may explain its benefits and perhaps discover a way to extend healthy years of life, known as our healthspan.
Although there have been many studies of calorie restriction since the Cornell findings, the NIA-supported clinical trial CALERIE, which stands for Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy, provided critical data on the impact of this intervention in people. Completed in 2012, CALERIE was the first carefully controlled study to test whether study participants undergoing moderate calorie restriction would display any of the benefits observed in animal studies.
Volunteers for the CALERIE study were healthy, non-obese adults ages 25 to 45. People in one group were randomly assigned to continue their customary dietary choices, and those in the second group were trained by an expert team of psychologists and dietitians to restrict calories through specific strategies, such as eating smaller servings of food.
In addition to demonstrating that people could sustain moderate calorie restriction for two years, the CALERIE study also showed that this intervention could diminish risk factors for age-related cardiovascular and metabolic diseases [2]. The CALERIE investigators also made their data and biological samples available for other research teams to study further.
Recently, a team led by Vishwa Dixit, Yale University, New Haven, CT, examined CALERIE data to investigate the effects of calorie restriction on immune function. The findings, published in the journal Science, suggest that calorie restriction may improve immune function and reduce chronic inflammation [3,4].
As people age, the size of the thymus, which is part of the immune system, tends to become smaller. As this organ shrinks, its output of T cells declines, which hampers the ability of the immune system to combat infectious diseases. This deficiency of T cells is one of the reasons people over age 40 are at increased susceptibility for a range of diseases.
Dixit’s team noted that MRI scans showed the thymus volume increased among people who reduced their calories for the two-year CALERIE study but was not significantly different in the control group. The increase in thymus size in the group restricting calories was accompanied by an increase in indicators of new T cell production.
Next, the team analyzed immune system effects in belly fat samples from people in the CALERIE study. The team discovered that the PLA2G7 gene—which codes for a protein involved in fat metabolism that is made by immune cells such as T cells—was suppressed after calorie restriction, with evidence that the suppression occurred in immune cells present in fat. They hypothesized that the PLA2G7 gene could have played a role in the improved thymus function resulting from calorie restriction.
To test this hypothesis, the team suppressed the Pla2g7 gene in lab mice. When these mice were two years old, which is equivalent to a human age of about 70, the thymus had not decreased in volume. In addition, the mice had decreased fat mass and lower levels of certain inflammation-promoting substances. These findings suggest that mice without the Pla2g7 gene might have been protected from age-related chronic inflammation, which has been linked to many conditions of old age.
Taken together, the findings extend our understanding of the power of calorie restriction and suggest that it might also improve immune function and reduce chronic inflammation in people. The results also indicate interventions that influence PLA2G7 gene function might have favorable health effects. Additional research is still needed to assess the health effects and to determine whether calorie restriction extends lifespan or healthspan in humans. The NIA is funding more studies to determine the benefits and risks of calorie restriction, as well as the mechanisms that account for its effects.
References:
[1] The effect of retarded growth upon the length of life span and upon the ultimate body size. McCay CM, Crowell MF, Maynard LA. J. Nutr. 1935 July 10(1): 63–79.
[2] A 2-year randomized controlled trial of human caloric restriction: feasibility and effects on predictors of health span and longevity. Ravussin E, Redman LM, Rochon J, Das SK, Fontana L, Kraus WE, Romashkan S, Williamson DA, Meydani SN, Villareal DT, Smith SR, Stein RI, Scott TM, Stewart TM, Saltzman E, Klein S, Bhapkar M, Martin CK, Gilhooly CH, Holloszy JO, Hadley EC, Roberts SB; CALERIE Study Group. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2015 Sep;70(9):1097-104.
[3] Caloric restriction in humans reveals immunometabolic regulators of health span. Spadaro O, Youm Y, Shchukina I, Ryu S, Sidorov S, Ravussin A, Nguyen K, Aladyeva E, Predeus AN, Smith SR, Ravussin E, Galban C, Artyomov MN, Dixit VD. Science. 2022 Feb 11;375(6581):671-677.
[4] Caloric restriction has a new player. Rhoads TW and Anderson RM. Science. 2022 Feb 11;375(6581):620-621.
Links:
Dietary Restriction (National Institute on Aging, NIH)
What Do We Know About Healthy Aging? (NIA)
Calorie Restriction and Fasting Diets: What Do We Know? (NIA)
Live Long in Good Health: Could Calorie Restriction Mimetics Hold the Key? (NIA)
Geroscience: The Intersection of Basic Aging Biology, Chronic Disease, and Health (NIA)
Comprehensive Assessment of Long-Term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy (CALERIE) (NIA)
CALERIE Intensive Intervention Database (NIA)
Research Highlights (NIA)
Vishwa Deep Dixit (Yale University, New Haven, CT)
CALERIE Research Network (Duke University, Durham, N.C.)
[Note: Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak has asked the heads of NIH’s Institutes and Centers (ICs) to contribute occasional guest posts to the blog to highlight some of the cool science that they support and conduct. This is the fourth in the series of NIH IC guest posts that will run until a new permanent NIH director is in place.]
Next Page
