Eating less may affect brain age

Article last edited on January 31, 2017 by Admin

Moderately reducing daily caloric intake would have beneficial effects on brain function. The opposite could also be true: excessive calorie intake would have negative effects on the functioning of the brain favoring diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.

Moderately reducing daily caloric intake can have the effect of “rejuvenating the brain in adult animals, by stimulating an increase in cerebral plasticity, characteristic of young brains. This is a conclusion of the research ‘Food restriction enhances visual cortex plasticity in adulthood’ carried out on healthy adult rats by a group of researchers from the Institute of Neurosciences of the National Research Council of Pisa (In-Cnr), directed by Lamberto Maffei, who is the director of the Institute, and the president of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.

The study, which demonstrates that a slight restriction of ingested calories has a strong impact on the plasticity of mouse brains, was published in the international specialized journal Nature Communications. Brain plasticity is a characteristic that confers the ability tolearning or of memorization that young people naturally have.

Here we are talking about caloric restriction (eating less) when the mice tested only consume 70% of the food normally absorbed. But it’s not just this Italian study that observes this beneficial effect of food restriction (eating less) on the brain. Numerous experiments have shown that such a reduction in food rejuvenates the age of the brain and thus prolongs life in laboratory animals.

The importance of a feed correct and balanced diet is therefore confirmed: a message that is all the more important at a time when deviant eating behaviors are frequent. The research team also believes that limiting the amount of food, even light, can have surprising and very different effects. In yeasts, worms, fruit flies, rodents and monkeys, which have been studied, increased longevity appears to be linked to these brain rejuvenation processes.

The survey, observes Professor Maffei, demonstrates that nature has endowed living beings with a stimulating means of survival: hunger. It helps to maintain a valiant brain, but it also encourages animals to explore their environment. However, the study specifies that excessive or prolonged deprivation of food can have diametrically opposite effects on the brain, in addition to causing serious stress to the body.

Note: when we talk about eating less in this study, we must understand “to absorb fewer calories”. Eating a lot but with low-calorie foods (such as fish, green vegetables, etc.) will have a very beneficial effect. Conversely, being satisfied with 2 croissants or pain au chocolat at lunch, foods with a high calorific intake, will have quite negative effects. (the energy of a pain au chocolat is equivalent to the energy spent jogging for 30 minutes). So more quantity it is necessary to speak here of quality of the food.

It therefore seems that if obesity or overweight promotes the onset of diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, the opposite is just as true.

Text: Hubert Heidsieck

Origin: — French Embassy in Ireland / ADIT – http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/67615.htm

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