The effects of graded levels of calorie restriction: II. Impact of short term calorie and protein restriction on circulating hormone levels, glucose homeostasis and oxidative stress in male C57BL/6 mice

Abstract

Limiting food intake attenuates many of the deleterious effects of aging, impacting upon healthspan and leading to an increased lifespan. Whether it is the overall restriction of calories (calorie restriction: CR) or the incidental reduction in macronutrients such as protein (protein restriction: PR) that mediate these effects is unclear. The impact of 3 month CR or PR, (10 to 40%), on C57BL/6 mice was compared to controls fed ad libitum. Reductions in circulating leptin, tumor necrosis factor-α and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) were relative to the level of CR and individually associated with morphological changes but remained unchanged following PR. Glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity were improved following CR but not affected by PR. There was no indication that CR had an effect on oxidative damage, however CR lowered antioxidant activity. No biomarkers of oxidative stress were altered by PR. CR significantly reduced levels of major urinary proteins suggesting lowered investment in reproduction. Results here support the idea that reduced adipokine levels, improved insulin/IGF-1 signaling and reduced reproductive investment play important roles in the beneficial effects of CR while, in the short-term, attenuation of oxidative damage is not applicable. None of the positive effects were replicated with PR.

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Oncotarget

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Oncotarget

Journal ID (publisher-id): ImpactJ

Title: Oncotarget

Publisher: Impact Journals LLC

ISSN (Electronic): 1949-2553

Publication date Collection: 15 September 2015

Publication date (Electronic): 1 June 2015

Volume: 6

Issue: 27

Pages: 23213-23237

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

² Mammalian Behaviour & Evolution Group, Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

³ Key laboratory of Systems Biology, Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

⁴ Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences-Max Planck Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

⁵ State Key Laboratory of Molecular Developmental Biology, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang, Beijing, China

⁶ Department of Pathology and Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

Author notes

Correspondence to: John R. Speakman, j.speakman@ 123456abdn.ac.uk

Article

PMC ID: 4695113

PubMed ID: 26061745

Copyright statement: Copyright: © 2015 Mitchell et al.

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Categories

Subject: Research Paper: Gerotarget (Focus on Aging)