Time-restricted eating slows blood vessel aging in animals

In an animal experiment, researchers tested how time-restricted feeding, which limits food intake to set daily hours, affected accelerated cardiovascular aging caused by angiotensin II, a blood pressure hormone.

The feeding schedule reshaped the gut microbiome, preserved the gut barrier, and lowered inflammation in the animals. This reduced high blood pressure, stiffening of the aorta, and harmful heart changes. Transferring gut microbes from treated animals repeated these benefits, while antibiotics erased them. The researchers identified a gut bacterium, Limosilactobacillus, that produced acetic acid during restricted feeding. In both animal cardiovascular tissues and cultured human endothelial cells, which line blood vessels, acetic acid reduced markers of senescence, a state where damaged cells stop dividing, and blocked an inflammatory form of cell death.