GADD45β in the Mechanisms of Fasting and Calorie Restriction

Lower calorie intake, while still obtaining required levels of micronutrients, has long been demonstrated to improve near all measures of health, leads to better quality of life, and modestly slows aging. A higher calorie intake leads to visceral fat deposition, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, and a shorter, less healthy life. Separately, fasting appears to have similar influences on health and aging to those produced by a lower calorie intake, but to some degree independently of overall calorie level - though it is worth noting that the body of research here is much smaller than that for calorie restriction without fasting. Since just about every aspect of metabolism is altered by calorie intake, both in the short term and over the long term, researchers attempting to understand how it all works at the detail level have an enormous task ahead of them. They are breaking off pieces of the puzzle one protein at a time, as in the research noted here, and will be doing so for a long time yet: The growing number of overweight people has long been one of modern society's pressing issues. In particular the resulting metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and corresponding secondary conditions can have serious consequences for health. A reduced intake of calories, such as in the framework of an intermittent fasting diet, can help to whip the metabolism back into shape - but why does this happen? Once we understand how fasting influences our meta...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs