We have discovered that cutting the consumption of an amino acid is related to more life expectancy. In mice, yes

Virtually anything, in excess, can end up being harmful. Water is no exception and amino acids, the “bricks of life” are not. This was demonstrated by a study conducted from one of those compounds.

In moderation. In study, conducted in mice, noticed that cutting the intake of isoleucine in the diet of animals helped increase the life expectancy of rodents by 33%.

Isoleucine. Isoleucine is one of the essential amino acids. Amino acids are essential molecules for life as they represent The links from which proteins are created. We know thousands of proteins, all of them composed from about twenty amino acids.

Our body can synthesize more than half of the amino acids that it requires to create proteins, but nine of these amino acids, the so -called essential, we must obtain them from our food. This is the case of isoleucine, an amino acid that we can find in a diversity of foods such as eggs, soybeans, meat and fish.

A previous track. The study started from a Previous indication. A study conducted ten years ago in the state of Wisconsin observed that the diets of people with obesity were richer in this amino acid than the average population.

In mice. For Study this correlationthe team went to the laboratory and studied its effect on mice. Laboratory animals divided into three groups: one control, to which no food restrictions were applied, another whose diet was altered to reduce the presence of amino acids, and another whose diet was normal in the presence of amino acids except in Isoleucine. The amount of isoleucine that this group received was ⅔ less than the standard.

The mice were six months when they started these diets, which would be equivalent to an age of 30 years in humans.

Analziating results. The team observed that the two groups of mice with amino acid restiring lost body fat at the beginning but those who had all the restricted amino acids lost it again soon. More important, the team observed that mice in this diet with less isoleucine increased their life expectancy: 7% in females and 33% in males.

Another relevant detail that they observed is that the mice in this diet would ingest more calories. Possibly, they point out, to compensate for the lack of nutritional contribution of this component. Despite this, they also burned more of these calories, which led them to maintain a lower body mass than the rest of the study mice.

The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine Cell metabolism.

And what about humans? The team responsible for the study was likely that the restriction of this amino acid can have a similar effect on humans. For now that possibility is little more than speculative but the fact that the greatest presence of this amino acid in the diets of people with obesity is already observed implies another indication of the existence of some relationship.

Beyond the biological differences between one species, the human diet is much less controllable than that of laboratory mice. The field of nutrition is extremely complex, with an infinity of nutrients, some of which interact with each other. He effect of other factors As our physical activity or tobacco consumption also affect our health and our life expectancy, making it difficult to elucidate the net impact of a nutrient on the human body.

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