Research Hit: Eat Less to Live Long and for Better Brain Health

How eating less activates genes that boost your brain health and lifespan.

You’ve reported multiple times on foods that seem to benefit cognitive ability and brain health but are you now saying simply eating less is better?

Well, those foods are still very good for your brain and health (.g. yoghurt, or strawberries, or cranberries). But it has been long known that caloric restriction seems to improve aging - sometimes quite dramatically. This was a big thing when it came out many years ago now: mice that were fed a diet that contained slightly less calories than they actually needed, lived significantly longer and remained more active physically and cognitively.

Oh wow! So simply eat less than you need - but won’t you fade away if you eat less calories?

That would seem to be logical - if we need the calories, eating less for a long period of time seems crazy. But there are also different ways to lower calorie restriction and one has been intermittent fasting by not eating for long periods during a day or regularly doing a one-day fast, for example.

How does this work then?

Well, that is precisely the point: multiple theories and mechanisms have been proposed and researched but a group of researchers around Kenneth Wilson of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging has identified a specific, or the, mechanism that seems to control this.

It kind of gets a bit complex but let’s see if I can explain it simply.