Eating
plenty of green peas, soybeans, corn and blue cheese, could help you live
longer by warding off disease, experts have discovered.
The foods, all rich in a compound called spermidine, could help
stave off cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, among others.
Scientists at the Weizmann Institute in Israel discovered that
spermidine reverses the body’s circadian rhythm, making it ‘younger’ and less
prone to the age-related diseases.
They note
that falling levels of polyamines, compounds that are present in all living
cells, cause circadian rhythms to slow down.
This effect was reversed by a dietary supplementation containing
spermidine, when given to mice.
Senior author, Dr. Gad Asher, said: “This discovery demonstrates
the tight intertwining between circadian clocks and metabolism and opens new
possibilities for nutritional interventions that modulate the clock’s function.
“Impaired circadian rhythmicity has been linked to a wide variety
of age-related diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s
disease, and inflammation.”
Polyamines are essential molecules present in all living
organisms.
They are derived from dietary sources and are synthesized by the
body’s cells, in turn regulating a variety of key cellular processes, such as
cell growth and proliferation.
Asher and his team of researchers suspected that polyamines might
also play a role in circadian biology, because they are known to influence the
clock’s functions.
When young mice were treated with a drug that inhibits polyamine
synthesis, their circadian clock slowed down by around 11 minutes per day,
compared to those mice who received no treatment.
In contrast,
adult mice that received extra spermidine in their drinking water had clocks
that ran about eight minutes faster, than those of untreated mice.
The effects of polyamines on the circadian clock were less
pronounced in mice than in cells due to the tight regulation of these critcial
compounds in their natural physiological context.
However, even subtle clock deviations have been associated with a
wide variety of metabolic and age-related diseases.
Source: .ngrguardiannews
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