The study, published in Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery (2005, vol. 7, no. 1), investigated whether aging skin in lab rats is influenced by calorie restriction. Researchers at the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Illinois in Chicago, administered a calorie restricted diet or an unrestricted diet to groups of 4 month old rats, 12 month old rats, and 24 month old rats. Skin samples obtained from the rats were examined for histological changes.
The researchers found that the unlimited diet rats had age-related skin changes including increased epidermal depth, dermal depth and fat layer. The calorie restricted rats did not demonstrate these age-related skin changes, although they had an increased amount of epidermal cells. Findings also revealed that the calorie restricted rats had increased collagen and elastic fibers, fibroblasts, and capillaries, compared to the unlimited diet rats. The authors suggest that these changes may slow the breakdown of fibrous connective tissue in aging skin.
"Histomorphological changes resulting from intrinsic aging affected some of the studied variables in the rat skin, and these changes were delayed or prevented by calorie restriction," the study authors write. "Some stimulatory effects, such as increased densities of fibroblasts and capillary profiles and higher values of connective tissue fibers resulting from calorie restriction, were also observed. Cutaneous morphological changes due to natural aging in this rat model seem to be modified by physiological or metabolic alterations imposed by calorie restriction."
Posted by Kristopher Foster on May 9, 2006 03:23 PM
