To What Extent are Gut Bacteria Involved in the Benefits of Fasting?

Calorie restriction improves health and extends life in most species and lineages tested, while both Protein restriction and intermittent fasting can provide similar but usually lesser packages of benefits. Once delving into the details of the biochemistry involved, however, the picture becomes very complex, and is still quite uncertain. These strategies probably work through overlapping collections of mechanisms that in turn interact with one another. Intermittent fasting and protein restriction still provide some benefits even when calorie level is kept constant, for example, and assays of epigenetic changes look fairly different for each of these dietary strategies. Part of the challenge inherent in investigating calorie restriction, protein restriction, and intermittent fasting lies in the fact that near everything in the operation of metabolism changes in response. To the degree that these approaches modestly slow aging, near every measure of aging is affected. How to pinpoint root causes, or important causes, or chains of cause and effect? It isn't easy, as demonstrated by the very slow progress on this front despite a great deal of investment in time and effort over the past three decades. The scope of "near everything" certainly includes the behavior and distribution of gut bacteria, and in recent years researchers have devoted increasing attention to their role in health and aging. That may well turn out to be in the same ballpark of importance to life ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs