Amino acid restriction, aging, and longevity: an update

Abstract

Various so-called dietary restriction paradigms have shown promise for extending health and life. All such paradigms rely on ad libitum (hereafter ad lib) feeding, something virtually never employed in animals whose long-term health we value, either as a control or, except for food restriction itself, for both control and treatment arms of the experiment. Even though the mechanism(s) remain only vaguely understood, compared to ad lib-fed animals a host of dietary manipulations, including calorie restriction, low protein, methionine, branched-chain amino acids, and even low isoleucine have demonstrable health benefits in laboratory species in a standard laboratory environment. The remaining challenge is to determine whether these health benefits remain in more realistic environments and how they interact with other health enhancing treatments such as exercise or emerging geroprotective drugs. Here we review the current state of the field of amino acid restriction on longevity of animal models and evaluate its translational potential.

Intermittent Fasting: Myths, Fakes and Truth on This Dietary Regimen Approach

“…However, several studies have suggested that restricting protein intake in the diet can increase lifespan and suppress the incidence of age-related diseases. In particular, amino acid restriction approaches, such as methionine restriction (MR), are believed to exert benefits on lifespan extension and metabolic health [15][16][17][18]. In fact, low-methionine diets appear to improve overall metabolic health by decreasing body weight, body mass index (BMI), and serum leptin concentrations and increasing plasma concentrations of the ketone bodies β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) and acetoacetate in overweight and obese adults [16].…”