Lowered Body Temperature is Important in the Beneficial Calorie Restriction Response

Calorie restriction lowers body temperature in mammals, but most research on how reduced calorie intake produces benefits to long-term health and longevity has focused on nutrient sensing as the primary trigger for the upregulation of stress responses and other helpful changes to cellular metabolism. Here, researchers demonstrate that reduced body temperature is in fact an important trigger mechanism, possible more so than nutrient sensing, as keeping calorie restricted mice warm eliminates much of the beneficial metabolic adaptation to reduced nutrient levels. Cutting calories significantly may not be an easy task for most, but it's tied to a host of health benefits ranging from longer lifespan to a much lower chance of developing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's. One consistent observation is that when mammals consume less food, their body temperature drops. It's evolution's way of helping us conserve energy until food is available again. It makes sense, considering that up to half of what we eat every day is turned into energy simply to maintain our core body temperature. Previous work showed that temperature reduction can increase lifespan independently of calorie restriction - and that these effects involve activation of certain cellular processes, most of which remain to be identified. On the flip side, studies have shown that preventing body temperature from dropping can actually counteract positive e...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs