Threonine Restriction Promotes Health in Mice

Calorie restriction, eating up to 40% fewer calories while maintaining optimal micronutrient intake, improves health and reliably extends life in most species. In humans it produces robust improvements in health, but we experience a much lesser degree of life extension than short-lived species such as mice. Calorie restriction research has given rise to a number of lines of work in which specific dietary components (such as individual essential amino acids) are restricted, to try to identify which of these components are responsible for the benefits. A sizable fraction of the calorie restriction response is thought to be triggered by low dietary intake of the essential amino acid methionine, for example. In contrast to that body of work, researchers here restrict threonine, another essential amino acid, in laboratory mice, and observe an interesting set of benefits. The current classification of essential amino acids (EAA) is based on the nutritional requirements for growth and vitality under nil dietary supply of an amino acid. However, humans rarely face dramatic protein/amino acid insufficiency, and for the first time in human history, nutritional excesses mean the amount of overweight people outnumber the amount of underweight people on a global scale. This calls for a reconsideration of amino acid functions in nutrition, now based upon health-related criteria. One approach is dietary protein dilution (DPD), where protein is reduced and replaced by other n...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs