Early Shifts of Brain Metabolism by Caloric Restriction Preserve White Matter Integrity and Long-Term Memory in Aging Mice

Many studies have addressed the effect of dietary glycemic index on obesity and diabetes, but little is known about its effect on life span itself. We found that adding a small amount of glucose to the medium (2%) shortened the life span of C. elegans by inhibiting the activities of life span-extending transcription factors that are also inhibited by insulin signaling: the FOXO family member DAF-16 and the heat shock factor HSF-1. This effect involved the downregulation of an aquaporin glycerol channel, aqp-1. We show that changes in glycerol metabolism are likely to underlie the life span-shortening effect of glucose and that aqp-1 may act cell nonautonomously as a feedback regulator in the insulin/IGF-1-signaling pathway. Insulin downregulates similar glycerol channels in mammals, suggesting that this glucose-responsive pathway might be conserved evolutionarily. Together, these findings raise the possibility that a low-sugar diet might have beneficial effects on life span in higher organisms.

Amyloid-β (Aβ) plaque deposition can precede the clinical manifestations of dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) by many years and can be associated with changes in brain metabolism. Both the Aβ plaque deposition and the changes in metabolism appear to be concentrated in the brain's default-mode network. In contrast to prior studies of brain metabolism which viewed brain metabolism from a unitary perspective that equated glucose utilization with oxygen consumption, we here report on regional glucose use apart from that entering oxidative phosphorylation (so-called "aerobic glycolysis"). Using PET, we found that the spatial distribution of aerobic glycolysis in normal young adults correlates spatially with Aβ deposition in individuals with DAT and cognitively normal participants with elevated Aβ, suggesting a possible link between regional aerobic glycolysis in young adulthood and later development of Alzheimer pathology.

We have studied 17 elderly and 27 non-elderly, nonobese subjects (mean age 69+/-1 and 37+/-2 yr, respectively) to assess the mechanisms responsible for the abnormal carbohydrate tolerance associated with aging. Serum glucose and insulin levels were significantly elevated in the elderly subjects compared with the nonelderly subjects during a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test, suggesting an insulin resistant state. Peripheral insulin sensitivity was assessed in both groups using the euglycemic glucose clamp technique during an insulin infusion rate of 40 mU/m(2) per min. Similar steady-state serum insulin levels led to a peripheral glucose disposal rate of 151+/-17 mg/m(2) per min in the elderly compared with a value of 247+/-12 mg/m(2) per min in the nonelderly, thus documenting the presence of insulin resistance in the elderly subjects. Insulin binding to isolated adipocytes and monocytes was similar in the elderly and nonelderly groups (2.34+/-0.33 vs. 2.62+/-0.24% and 5.04+/-1.10 vs. 5.12+/-1.07%), respectively. Thus, insulin resistance in the presence of normal insulin binding suggests the presence of a postreceptor defect in insulin action. This was confirmed by performing additional euglycemic clamp studies using infusion rates of 15 and 1,200 mU/m(2) per min to assess the contours of the dose-response relationship. These studies revealed a 39 and 25% decrease in the glucose disposal rate in the elderly subjects, respectively. The results confirm the presence of a postreceptor defect as well as a rightward shift in the dose-response curve. Insulin's ability to suppress hepatic glucose output was less in the elderly subjects during the 15 mU/m(2) per min insulin infusion (77+/-5 vs. 89+/-4% suppression), but hepatic glucose output was fully and equally suppressed in both groups during the 40 and 1,200 mU/m(2) per min infusion. Finally, a significant inverse relationship was observed between the degree of glucose intolerance in the individual elderly subjects, as reflected by the 2-h serum glucose level during the oral glucose tolerance test, and the degree of peripheral insulin resistance as assessed by the glucose disposal rate during the 40 mU/m(2) per min insulin infusion (r = 0.59, P < 0.01).We conclude that carbohydrate intolerance develops as part of the aging process. This carbohydrate intolerance appears to be the consequence of peripheral insulin resistance caused by a postreceptor defect in target tissue insulin action, which causes both a decrease in the maximal rate of peripheral glucose disposal and a rightward shift in the insulin action dose-response curve. In elderly subjects, the severity of the abnormality in carbohydrate tolerance is directly correlated to the degree of peripheral insulin resistance.