A Chinese study shows that people who follow a “healthy” vegetarian diet age more slowly than those who consume more animal products or canned vegetables.
After tracking the health data of more than 10,000 people over the age of 50 for 8 years to determine the impact of diet on biological age, researchers from Zhejiang University (China) advise limit meat consumption if you want to age well.
In a study published in August in BMC medicine, they show that people who follow a “healthy” diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables and legumes, age more slowly than those who consume more animal products and ultra-processed foods. In other words, the vegetarian diet would allow us to have a biological age (the age of our cells) lower than our chronological age (the one corresponding to our date of birth).
How to slow cell aging
Scientists are increasingly interested in biological age to measure a person’s actual fitness and health. They only need to observe the cells to determine if they have entered senescence, a phase of cell development during which they lose the ability to regenerate and repair themselves, setting the stage for age-related diseases.
This is what Chinese researchers do. What allowed them to discover that followers of the vegetarian diet reduced their risk of accelerated aging by about a third … provided they did not opt for refined grains, canned vegetables or dairy products, all identified as “key potential contributors to higher aging scores”.
Source : Association between plant-based dietary pattern and biological aging trajectory in a large prospective cohortBMC Medicine, August 2023