State College, Pennsylvania — Penn State researchers are presenting fresh persuasive data linking diets to ageing. Their study focused on telomeres, the genetic "end caps" that protect our chromosomes, and how calorie restriction impacts them. The scientists studied data from a two-year trial of caloric restriction in humans and published their findings in the journal Ageing Cell. They discovered that those who restricted their calories lost telomeres at different rates than the control group. Despite this, both groups concluded the research with roughly identical telomere lengths. Previous research found that reducing calories by 20 to 60 percent resulted in prolonged life for a variety of species. When a person's cells split, some telomeres are lost as chromosomes are copied to a new cell. The cell's telomeres are then shortened in total. The telomere cap eventually disappears as cells divide. The genetic information on the chromosome becomes more vulnerable to de...
LONDON -- According to recent studies, vitamin D may one day help humans prevent lethal kinds of cancer. Scientists from the Francis Crick Institute, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and Aalborg University discovered that vitamin D promotes the growth of a specific type of gut bacteria in mice, enhancing cancer immunity. More specifically, the study's authors discovered that feeding mice a vitamin D-rich diet increased their immunological resistance to transplanted tumours and boosted their responses to immunotherapy treatment. This impact persisted even after scientists employed gene editing to eliminate a protein that binds to vitamin D in the blood and keeps it out of tissues. To their astonishment, the researchers discovered that vitamin D affects on epithelial cells in the colon, resulting in an increase in the quantity of Bacteroides fragilis. That bacteria enhanced the mice's immunity to cancer. The study discovered that transplanted tumours grew less, however th...