A Nutrition-Longevity Tradeoff Enforced by Innate Immunity

Dietary restriction (DR) extends lifespan in multiple animal species, but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. A recent study published in Cell Metabolism by Wu et al. (2019) shows that DR represses an evolutionarily conserved p38 MAPK pathway involved in innate immunity, leading to diminished expression of p38 MAPK-regulated genes and extended lifespan.