As cells age, damaged proteins and lipids accumulate within them. Impaired cell parts can send free radicals into the body, and dysfunctional proteins and lipids may break down DNA within cells, causing them to become toxic. Cells usually clean up their own damage through a “housekeeping” process called autophagy. But as the body ages and in people with certain diseases, cells’ ability to do this housekeeping becomes less efficient. That means it may be harder for people to recover from cardiac events such as heart attack or other illnesses. University of Florida researchers have found that combining calorie restriction with a supplement of resveratrol, an antioxidant found in the skin of red grapes, dark chocolate and blueberries, could kick-start this housekeeping process, helping heart cells recover from damage, according to a study in rats published in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine. ...To study this, the researchers restricted the calorie intake of one group of 26-month-old rats — approximately equivalent to a 65-year-old human — by 20 percent over a period of six weeks. Another group received only the resveratrol supplement. A third group received both the calorie-restricted diets and the resveratrol. “Only the group with caloric restriction plus a higher dose of resveratrol induced autophagy,” said Leeuwenburgh, who is also chief of the division of the biology of aging in the University of Florida Institute on Aging. The researchers think the combination of resveratrol and calorie restriction promotes the role of a protein called mTOR, which regulates cell growth, proliferation and survival, though the researchers say they need to further investigate exactly why the combination of interventions was more effective than either just calorie restriction or just resveratrol. #resveratrol #calorierestriction #autophagy #mtor #mammaliantargetofrapamycin #universityoffloridainstituteofaging
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:37:58 +0000
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