Summary: Living longer doesn’t always mean living healthier, and researchers are exploring how diet can extend healthspan. A study in worms shows that specific dietary RNA molecules protect cells from harmful protein build-up, a major driver of aging and age-related disease.
These RNAs activate stress responses and autophagy, enhancing resilience and slowing cellular aging across the body. While still early-stage research, the findings suggest diet could play a powerful role in promoting healthier aging in humans too.
Key Facts
- Dietary RNA Benefits: Food-based RNAs reduce harmful protein aggregates.
- Protective Mechanism: They trigger autophagy and stress resilience pathways.
- Whole-Body Impact: Worms lived healthier and more active lives with balanced diets.
Source: University of Basel
People are living longer than ever, but a long life doesn’t necessarily mean a healthy one.
For many, the question isn’t so much “How old do I want to get?” but rather “How do I want to get old?”. While lifespan refers to the years we live from birth to death, “healthspan” describes the number of years we spend in good health.
Healthy aging is also a question of diet. It’s long been known that not just the quantity, but also the individual nutrients impact how we age. Using the tiny worm Caenorhabditis elegans, Spang’s team has now demonstrated that certain RNA molecules in food have a positive effect on the worm’s fitness in old age.
“These molecules prevent the formation of harmful protein aggregates that are typically linked with aging and disease,” says Spang.
The results of their study have been published in “Nature Communications”.
How diet shapes aging
With age, the body becomes less efficient at removing altered and damaged proteins. These can accumulate and form harmful protein aggregates in cells. Such protein aggregates are considered drivers of aging and are associated with multiple age-related diseases including muscular and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
The researchers have discovered that a balanced diet promotes healthspan and specific components in the nematode’s diet exert a protective effect. The worms feed mainly on bacteria that contain double-stranded RNA molecules.
“These dietary RNAs are absorbed in the gut and activate quality-control mechanisms to protect from cellular stress,” explains Emmanouil Kyriakakis, the study’s first author.”
This low-level stress essentially trains the body to cope with protein damage more effectively.”
Diet-dependent mechanisms slow cellular aging
Diet activates autophagy—a cellular “clean-up” process that degrades and recycles damaged proteins. This mechanism reduces harmful protein aggregation and thus slows down cell aging.
“We were surprised to find that the gut communicates with other organs,” says Kyriakakis. “We observed protective effects not only locally, but also in muscles and throughout the whole organism.”
Healthier aging — even in worms
Overall, the worms exposed to a balanced diet were more active and healthier in old age. “The dietary-RNA species elicit a systemic stress response that protects the worms from protein aggregation during aging,” says Kyriakakis. “thereby extending their healthspan.”
The findings confirm that diet strongly influences health in old age. “Specific food components can stimulate the body’s own protective mechanisms,” adds Spang.
“So, a little stress can be good for you.” Whether individual nutrients can also spark beneficial effects in humans – and potentially help prevent age-related diseases – remains to be investigated. But it’s certainly conceivable. What is clear already: What we eat can shape the way we age.
Key Questions Answered:
A: Healthspan refers to the number of years spent in good health, whereas lifespan is simply the total years lived.
A: Certain dietary RNA molecules help prevent harmful protein aggregates and activate cellular clean-up processes like autophagy.
A: Worms fed bacterial RNAs showed reduced protein damage, stronger stress defenses, and healthier aging overall.
About this diet, genetics, and aging research news
Author: Angelika Jacobs
Source: University of Basel
Contact: Angelika Jacobs – University of Basel
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Bacterial RNA promotes proteostasis through inter-tissue communication in C. elegans” by Anne Spang et al. Nature Communications
Abstract
Bacterial RNA promotes proteostasis through inter-tissue communication in C. elegans
Life expectancy has been increasing over the last decades, which is not matched by an increase in healthspan. Besides genetic composition, environmental and nutritional factors influence both health- and lifespan. Diet is thought to be a major factor for healthy ageing.
Here, we show that dietary RNA species improve proteostasis in C. elegans. Inherent bacterial-derived double stranded RNA reduces protein aggregation in a C. elegans muscle proteostasis model.
This beneficial effect depends on low levels of systemic selective autophagy, the RNAi machinery in the germline, even when the RNA is delivered through ingestion in the intestine and the integrity of muscle cells.
Our data suggest a requirement of inter-organ communication between the intestine, the germline and muscles.
Our results demonstrate that bacterial-derived RNAs elicit a systemic response in C. elegans, which protects the animal from protein aggregation during ageing, which might extend healthspan.
