Healthy diet may be linked to healthy cellular aging in women

Eating a diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and low in added sugar, sodium, and processed meats could help promote healthy cellular aging in women, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

In the study, researchers used telomere length to measure cellular aging. Telomeres are DNA-protein structures located on the ends of chromosomes that promote stability and protect DNA. Age is the strongest predictor of telomere length—telomeres shorten in length during each cell cycle. However, recent studies have shown that telomeres can also be shortened due to behavioral, environmental, and psychological factors.

The researchers examined the diets of a nationally representative sample of nearly 5,000 healthy adults and how well they scored on four evidence-based diet quality indices, including the Mediterranean diet, the DASH diet, and two commonly used measures of diet quality developed by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

For women, higher scores on each of the indices were significantly associated with longer telomere length. “We were surprised that the findings were consistent regardless of the diet quality index we used,” said lead author Cindy Leung, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. All four diets emphasize eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and plant-based protein and limiting consumption of sugar, sodium, and red and processed meat.

“The commonality to all of the healthy diet patterns is that they are antioxidant and anti-inflammatory diets,” said co-author Elissa Epel, professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. “They create a biochemical environment favorable to telomeres.”

In men, the findings were in the same direction, but not statistically significant.

“It’s possible that not all foods affect telomere length equally and you need higher amounts of protective foods in order to negate the harmful effects of others,” said Leung. “However, more research is needed to explore this further.”

Abstract