Calorie-Restricted Diet Keeps Heart Young
Date: 19.6.2012
People who restrict their caloric intake in an effort to live longer have hearts that function more like those in people who are 20 years younger. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a key measure of the heart's ability to adapt to physical activity, stress, sleep and other factors that influence the rate at which the heart pumps blood, doesn't decline nearly as rapidly in people who have significantly restricted their caloric intake for an average of seven years.
The study is available online in the journal Aging Cell.
The researchers hooked portable heart monitors to 22 practitioners of calorie restriction (CR) who ate healthy diets but consumed 30 percent fewer calories than normal. Their average age was just over 51. For comparison purposes, researchers also studied 20 other people of about the same age who ate standard Western diets. Heart rates were significantly lower in the CR group, and their heart rate variability was significantly higher.
