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Australian Study Finds Replacing Some Meat With Vegetables Slows Biological Aging
Roughly 100 adults aged 65-75 followed one of four controlled diets for a month. Three of the four diets produced measurable reductions in biological age.
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A month-long feeding study in Australia found that adults aged 65 to 75 who lowered animal protein from half to roughly 30 percent of total protein showed measurable reductions in biological age. Researchers at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre supplied 100 healthy participants with freshly prepared, unprocessed meals delivered weekly and instructed them to eat only the provided food, avoiding alcohol, extra sweets, and ultra-processed snacks.
Participants were divided into four groups that differed in the share of protein from animal sources and in the balance of fat and carbohydrates.
Diet 1 contained 14 percent protein with half from animals, about 40 percent fat, and about 40 percent carbohydrates. Diet 2 matched the protein split but lowered fat to about 30 percent and raised carbohydrates to about 50 percent. Diets 3 and 4 reduced animal protein to 30 percent of total protein while varying fat and carbohydrate levels in the same pattern.
At the end of the month, participants on diets 2, 3, and 4 recorded improvements in biological age measured by the Klemera-Doubal Method, which incorporates standard blood-test markers such as blood pressure, cholesterol, and creatinine. Participants on diet 1 showed no change. All four groups lost an average of roughly four pounds, three of which was fat.
Grip-strength and other functional measures remained stable across the diets. Senior study author Alistair Senior, a nutrition scientist at the Charles Perkins Centre, said the trial was designed to test causal links between macronutrients and health in older age. “Even our vegetarian diets weren’t 100 percent vegetarian,” he said.
Senior added that complete elimination of meat is not required. “We’re not even saying you need to go for a fully vegetarian diet, but trying to substitute some of that [meat] out might do the trick,” he said. Columbia University epidemiologist Dan Belsky, who was not involved in the study, called the findings reassuring.
