Reference News Network reported on February 25. According to the British “Daily Mail” website reported on February 23, scientists at Yale University in the United States said that reducing calorie intake can make a key part of the body’s immune system “more powerful”. lively”.
Adults who reduced their calorie intake by about 14% had better thymus gland function.
14% is roughly equivalent to 300 kcal for a woman consuming 2000 kcal per day or a man consuming 2500 kcal.
The thymus, an organ above the heart that produces disease-fighting T cells, typically ages faster than the rest of the body.
Decades of research have shown that reducing caloric intake can enhance thymus function in flies, worms and mice, leading to longer lifespans.
The researchers called the results “exciting.”
The study, published in the journal Science, recruited 238 non-obese adults between the ages of 26 and 47, and asked two-thirds of the participants to reduce their calorie intake.
When the researchers looked at the participants’ MRI results two years later, they found that those who ate less had better thymus gland function.
They also found that these people had less fat around the thymus, while participants who did not restrict their diet showed little change.
Professor Dixit, director of the Yale Center for Aging Research, said the experiments showed that after two years of reducing calorie intake, the human thymus produced more T cells than at the beginning.
The study also showed that reducing caloric intake inhibited the formation of an aging-related protein called PLA2G7.