By now you know there’s a direct link between the foods you consume, the health you currently experience, and even the healthy longevity you’ll (hopefully) enjoy. A consensus has emerged that diets like the Mediterranean Diet play an important role in keeping your body and brain healthy as you age. But are there eating strategies that can perhaps do even more to extend your health span, prolong your life span, and combat such illnesses as cardiovascular disease, cancer, or even dementia? Professor Valter Longo, the Edna M. Jones Professor of Gerontology and Biological Sciences and Director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California –Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Los Angeles, believes he is on a better path to achieving these goals. We previously discussed Dr. Longo back in 2022, when his research on fasting mimicking diets was first introduced. The goal is to mimic the benefits of fasting for your body while still allowing you to consume certain foods and nutrients. In essence, it’s a 5-day-a-month specially formulated vegan diet that tricks the body into responding the way it would if you were only consuming water in those 5 days. Recently, Dr. Longo has reported new scientific results that not only substantiate the health benefits of this strategy but also appear to lower your biological age by up to 2.5 years. While this diet may not be for everyone, it does appear to herald a new way of using food and nutrients to combat illness and aging in humans.

Just published in Nature Communications, Longo’s newest study involved 184 participants in Los Angeles and Tennessee, ages 18-70. Half the participants ate a normal diet or Mediterranean diet, and the other half ate their normal diet for 25 days a month, but for the remaining 5 days a month, they consumed a specially formulated fasting mimicking diet. This was made up of plant-based nutrients, low protein, low sugar, and high fat carbohydrates. The “food” during this time was in the form of soups,  energy bars, and drinks, snacks, and tea, along with a specially formulated supplement to provide additional minerals, vitamins, and essential fatty acids. The results of the study were impressive. Those who participated in the fasting mimicking diet saw lower insulin resistance, lower liver fat inflammation, a reduction of their biological age by 2.5 years, and rejuvenated or improved immune and endocrine systems. Moreover, those participating in the fasting mimicking diet seemed to have little problem sticking to the regimen for the 5 days, suggesting that this may be a valuable way to alter the impact of diet on health without causing drastic lifestyle changes. While more studies are needed to validate and confirm the results, this does appear to be a strategy to lower biological age and improve the functioning of multiple systems in the body, key risk factors for age-related illnesses. 

Dr. Longo believes that this approach to eating could be readily adopted by large segments of the population, as it would only require the fasting mimicking 5-day approach for a total of 2 or 3 months of the year to achieve the benefits. The costs of the “food” during these 5-day cycles would be a little more than $300 per cycle (currently being produced by the company L-Nutra), an expense which could potentially be borne by insurance companies, given the cost-savings achieved by better health. There is some suggestion that this strategy of eating should not be followed by pregnant women, and it’s unclear up until what age this diet would be appropriate (though participants as old as 70 were involved in the study). Those who are older, and especially those who already have chronic health issues may not be appropriate candidates. But for those who are younger and healthier, it may be that by carefully tailoring your food intake 5 days a month, a few times a year, you will secure a healthier body for yourself without going through drastic lifestyle changes. To find out more about this study and dietary approach, read here. And to find out what Dr. Longo typically consumes in his daily diet, grab a plate and click here.