A vegan diet is not only more climate-friendly than a meat-based diet, but is also considered healthier. A twin study now suggests that a vegan diet could also counteract aging. The twins who ate a vegan diet for eight weeks subsequently had a younger biological age than their siblings who ate a normal diet, as analyses have shown. Is a vegan diet therefore a hot tip for a rejuvenation cure?
As we age, various characteristics and molecules in our cells change. Among other things, studies show that small methyl groups are increasingly added to our DNA. These epigenetic chemical changes have no direct effect on our genetic makeup, but they do affect which genes are read. As we age, our metabolism can change and regeneration processes can slow down. How quickly this and other aging processes occur in our bodies depends on various factors, including our genetics and our social environment. Lifestyle also has a major influence, including sleeping habits, medications taken and diet. Some studies, for example, suggest that a Mediterranean diet could slow down aging.
Younger after eight weeks as a vegan?
A team led by Varun Dwaraka from TruDiagnostic in Kentucky has now investigated the influence that the consumption of animal products has on this molecular aging process. The study involved 21 adult, slightly overweight pairs of twins. One of the two identical twins was fed a vegan diet for a period of eight weeks. The other twin ate a healthy, mixed diet that included an egg, dairy products and meat every day. During this time, Dwaraka and his colleagues examined the methylation rate of DNA and various biological markers for organ health in the subjects’ blood samples – as an indication of the biological age of the test subjects.
The before and after comparison showed that the people who ate a vegan diet showed detectable changes in the methylation rate of their genes after eight weeks. Numerous appendages typical of aging were reduced, while those considered to be rejuvenating were increased. Other indicators suggest that the telomeres, the end caps of the chromosomes, had lengthened in the twin with the vegan diet. This indicates a lower biological age than before the experiment, as the team reports. The heart and liver of the short-term vegans as well as their hormonal, immune and metabolic systems also showed “younger” characteristics after the experiment. In the test subjects with the meat-based diet, however, the markers examined did not change.
Cause unclear
“Using epigenetic age clocks, we observed significant changes in healthy identical twins, suggesting that a calorie-restricted vegan diet has short-term benefits for aging compared to an omnivorous diet,” the researchers write. The results therefore suggest that a vegan diet can reduce the biological age of our body after just a short period of time.
However, it is unclear whether this is due to the vegan diet. The test subjects with the vegan diet also consumed fewer calories during the experiment and therefore lost an average of two kilograms more than their twin partners. The observed rejuvenation effect could therefore also be due to the weight loss and not to the vegan diet per se. This will now be investigated in more detail in follow-up studies with more participants. It will then also be clarified whether a longer-term vegan diet has a rejuvenating effect and how long the observed rejuvenation effect lasts in short-term vegans.
Source: Varun Dwaraka (TruDiagnostic Inc.) et al.; BMC Medicine, doi: 10.1186/s12916-024-03513-w