Aging-pace score fell in men after a lifestyle program
A blood-based measure estimated a 2.2% slower aging pace after 12 weeks in the program group; controls showed no meaningful change.
Registered UMIN000057293
Limit: Only 45 participants were analyzed across both groups
Stake: KSO Corporation funded the study. An author works for Morinaga Milk Industry.
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
In a randomized trial, 48 overweight men aged 50–74 in Japan were assigned to a 12-week lifestyle program or their usual routines. The program combined dietary counseling, 100 grams of yogurt containing Bifidobacterium longum BB536 bacteria daily, and advice to walk or use a stepper for 30 minutes at least three days weekly.
Researchers tested blood before and after the program for DNA methylation, chemical tags on DNA. DunedinPACE, a measure estimating aging pace from these tags, fell in the program group, with no meaningful change in controls. This corresponded to an estimated 2.2% slower aging pace within the program group. No between-group difference in measures estimating biological age remained statistically significant after accounting for multiple tests.
Why it matters
Aging-related chronic diseases motivate the search for practical lifestyle approaches that might slow biological aging. Blood-based aging measures offer one way to study short-term responses.
Caveats
This small, unblinded trial analyzed only 45 participants who followed the protocol and had no single prespecified main outcome. The blood measures do not establish lasting health benefits, and the findings may not extend to women or people with serious illnesses, who were excluded.
From the paper
- Participants
Forty-eight eligible overweight male participants met the inclusion criteria and were enrolled.
- Ages
The inclusion criteria were as follows: (1) male, aged ≥50 years and <75 years at consent; (2) BMI ≥25 kg/m²; (3) no habitual intake of fermented milk products (≤1 time/week); (4) medically cleared for regular exercise; and (5) ability to measure daily step count.
- Sex
The study was limited to men to avoid potential confounding from variation in female sex hormone status across a similar age range.
- Duration
The study comprised a 1-week pre-observation period followed by a 12-week intervention period, during which adherence was monitored by recording daily steps with a pedometer and tracking body weight and dietary intake, as detailed in the respective measurement sections.
- Result
For DunedinPACE the adjusted mean change was −0.022 (95%CI −0.039 to −0.004) in the INT group and +0.001 (95%CI −0.015 to +0.017) in the CON group, resulting in a modest but statistically significant between-group difference of −0.023 (95%CI −0.045 to −0.001; p = 0.045; ).
- Limitation
First, because the intervention combined dietary counseling, exercise, and BB536-containing yogurt, the present study cannot attribute the observed epigenetic changes to any single component or their interaction.
- DNAmCystatinC
In exploratory analyses of GrimAge-derived surrogate markers, including DNAm-based estimators of plasma proteins (e.g., DNAmCystatinC, DNAmADM, DNAmPAI-1, DNAmGDF15), DNAmCystatinC showed a significant between-group difference and remained significant after FDR correction (p = 0.001; q < 0.01; ).
Quoted word for word from the full text on PubMed Central.