Eating more doesn’t just mean more calories but it also means that you might not live longer. 

If your mum pushes you to eat more, then it time to bring in her notice that eating more might actually have adverse effects. In fact, the researchers are saying that eating more might cut a few years from your life.

They say that if you want to live longer then you must reduce levels of inflammation throughout your body and delay the onset of age-related diseases.

Eat less food, say researchers
While the benefits of caloric restriction have long been known, the new results show how this restriction can protect against aging in cellular pathways.

Belmonte added:

This gives us targets that we may eventually be able to act on with drugs to treat aging in humans.

The diet of animals in the age group of 18-27 months was controlled. (In humans, this would be roughly equivalent to someone following a calorie-restricted diet from the age of 50 to 70.)

The research team isolated and analysed a total of 1,68,703 cells from 40 cell types in the 56 rats from starting as well as during the conclusion of the diet. The cells came from fat tissues, liver, kidney, aorta, skin, bone marrow, brain, and muscle.

In each isolated cell, the researchers used single-cell genetic-sequencing technology to measure the activity levels of genes.

They also looked at the overall composition of cell types within any given tissue. Then, they compared old and young mice on each diet.

Many of the changes that occurred on the normal diet didn’t occur on a restricted diet; even in old age, many of the tissues and cells of animals on the diet closely resembled those of young rats.

Restrict your calorie intake today to live better tomorrow
Overall, 57% of the age-related changes in cell composition seen in the tissues on a normal diet were not present on the calorie-restricted diet, the study said.

“This approach not only told us the effect of calorie restriction on these cell types but also provided the most complete and detailed study of what happens at a single-cell level during aging,” said study researcher Guang-Hui Liu from Chinese Academy of Sciences in China.

According to the study, some of the cells and genes most affected by the diet-related to immunity, inflammation, and lipid metabolism.

The number of immune cells in nearly every tissue studied dramatically increased but was not affected by age with restricted calories.

In brown adipose tissue–one type of fat tissue–a calorie-restricted diet reverted the expression levels of many anti-inflammatory genes to those seen in young animals, the research said.

So, the bottom line is more is not always good and if you want to live a healthy and long life then eating smaller meals is the way to go.