Cutting calories could drastically reduce your body’s internal aging

But youth is fleeting, and someday you may find yourself so desperate to feel young again that you’ll resort to something crazy, like drinking bull semen or building a genesis machine.

However, in lieu of that, there may be a much simpler method to delaying the effects of aging on your insides. By that, we mean you could just cut some calories. This most recent find on the search for immortality comes from a review from a set of researchers at Duke University, and was also published in Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences. The researchers came to the conclusion that reducing your daily caloric intake by 25 percent (admittedly, not an easy thing to do) can tax your “internal age” by .6 less years than that of your peers annually.

As if that wasn’t enough of a temptation to disregard unnecessary portions, the review also found that fasting may actually be able to protect you against chronic diseases.

Assistant professor of medicine at Duke, Dr. Daniel Belsky, lent some context for those in need of it. “Biological aging is the gradual and progressive deterioration of systems in the body that occurs with advancing,” he said. “If we can intervene to slow the rate of biological aging, it may be possible to prevent or at least delay onset for many age-related diseases and disabilities.”

To come to their conclusion, researchers took a look at data from a former trial which had 220 non-obese subjects participate. Out of those 220 people, 145 of them had their caloric intake reduced by a quarter, while the other 75 ate the way they normally ate. Updates were provided at the one and two year marks so researchers could calculate the internal clocks of the participants by measuring their metabolic and immune system function, as well as their heart(s).

When the study began, there was no difference between each group’s biological age. However, after gauging each subject during their yearly updates, researchers found the biological age of the group reducing their calories increased by a mere average of 0.11 years, while those who followed their normal routine aged by 0.71 years.

“Biological aging is the gradual and progressive deterioration of systems in the body that occurs with advancing,” Belsky said. “If we can intervene to slow the rate of biological aging, it may be possible to prevent or at least delay onset for many age-related diseases and disabilities.”

Belsky’s review didn’t attempt to explain why caloric reduction slows your body from biological aging, but past studies reasoned that cell division and loss is prevented when the body lacks energy. In turn, that could lead to less inflammation.

Dr. William Kraus, who was the review’s co-author, said that the findings were important because so much effort and research has gone into making one appear young on the outside, while the most important bodily functions are those that happen on the inside (see, it’s not just a stupid thing people say to make you feel better).

Now it’s up to you to decide if cutting a quarter of your daily food is something you can spare. And, if not, maybe just try exercise? Your call.