How diet, lifestyle can prolong aging

Key takeaways:

• An expert recommended spermidine-rich foods like beans, tempeh and wheat germ to boost autophagy.
• He also highlighted the effects of fasting, exercise and both regular and decaffeinated coffee.

DENVER — There are multiple diet and lifestyle strategies that can improve an individual’s autophagy and ultimately extend aging, according to an expert at the Lifestyle Medicine Conference.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, autophagy is the body’s cellular recycling system, where cells break down and salvage their junk into new, usable cell parts, and discard those they do not need.

During his presentation, Michael Greger, MD, FALCM, DipABLM, a founding member and physician at the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, said that autophagy can delay aging, but its abilities decrease with age.

“The drug industry’s eager to pharmacologically modulate autophagy to combat aging, but we can do it naturally,” Greger said.

He explained that although fasting is one such method, “autophagy doesn’t maximally ramp up until after a day or two,” and that “may be too long to go unsupervised.”

“Fasting longer than 24 hours should only be done under medical supervision and preferably in a lived-in clinic,” he said.

Another strategy can include physical activity. Gregor noted autophagy is activated after 60 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise, “but only 20 minutes fails to move the needle.”

Several food components have demonstrated positive relationships with autophagy, although others can have negative effects. Unideal components include acrylamide — a toxin developed while frying in foods like French fries and potato chips.

Gregor advised limiting intake of both foods, but if that is not possible, he recommended air frying, which reduces acrylamide content by around 90% compared with conventional deep oil frying.

In contrast, high intake of the polyamine compound spermidine was linked to lower all-cause mortality.

“Our bodies can make it from scratch, but we can also boost levels by eating from spermidine-rich food, which is good news because our spermidine levels tend to decline with age, dropping more than half by the time we reach [age 50 years]” Gregor said.

He highlighted beans, said to have the highest amount of polyamines in natural foods, as an ideal food to help support spermidine levels in older age.

Other top spermidine sources include:

• tempeh (9.7 mg of spermidine per 100 mg serving);
• mushrooms (9.2 mg of spermidine per 100 mg serving);
• pig pancreas (9.2 mg of spermidine per 1 oz serving);
• natto (8.2 mg of spermidine per 1 oz serving); and
• mangoes (6.1 mg of spermidine per 210 g serving).

However, Gregor noted wheat germ is the most concentrated spermidine source, at 2.5 mg in a single tablespoon.

“It’s also the cheapest source, costing as little as 2 cents per milligram,” he said. “You can’t get a lot of pancreases for 2 cents.”

Gregor added individuals should try to consume at least 20 mg of spermidine on a daily basis.

Gregor pointed to both regular and decaffeinated coffee as beneficial to autophagy and aging, with prior literature showing that coffee was linked to a 13% reduction in all-cause mortality.

He explained this association can be contributed to chlorogenic acid, the most abundant antioxidant in coffee and which was found to enhance autophagy.

Gregor ultimately recommended instant coffee and brewed coffee — the latter possessing more compounds than expresso coffee — and three cups of coffee a day for boosting autography.

“Paper filtered is the best because it traps the cholesterol-raising compounds in coffee,” he said.

References:

• Autophagy. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/24058-autophagy. Accessed Nov. 1, 2023.
• Greger M. How to not age. Presented at: Lifestyle Medicine Conference; Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 2023; Denver.