Want To Reduce Your Senescent Cells? An Argument For Diet-Induced Weight Loss
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In December of 2016, an outstanding scientific paper titled "Diet-induced weight loss is sufficient to reduce senescent cell number in white adipose tissue of weight-cycled mice" stated in its abstract:
"Previously, our laboratory reported that weight-cycled mice outlive their obese counterparts. To gain a better mechanistic understanding of these results, we evaluated cellular senescence in white adipose tissue (WAT) of lean, obese, and weight cycled mice. Our results show that at the end of a 28 day weight loss cycle cellular senescence is significantly reduced in multiple WAT depots compared to obese mice, which also corresponds to a reduction in circulating activin A (a marker of senescence). These findings suggest that a previously undescribed benefit to weight loss may be a reduction of cellular senescence in WAT."
Fortunately, cellular senescence is an increasingly popular topic. These dysfunctional cells have been implicated in numerous age-related dysfunctions. While the efforts to remove these senile cells have been growing, this study shows that at least one form of cellular senescence can be addressed without drugs or other high-tech interventions.
In this study, calorie restriction-induced weight loss was sufficient to reduce the proportion of senescent fat cells in mice. Perhaps adipocytes can become so overfed that they can't handle all of the nutrients thrown at them, and they turn senescent from the overload. A period of energy reduction may enable these fat cells to shed their extra contents, and in that process, fix the cellular damage causing them to be senescent. Alternatively, it may be that caloric restriction enables the destruction and removal of these senescent fat cells. In either case, simple weight loss in this study was found to reduce the percentage of senescent cells in white adipose tissue of mice. Perhaps there are other simple ways we can address senescent cell burden with advancing age.
We invite you to read the paper by clicking on the link below!