Grant: Operating Grant

Most people believe that what we eat affects how we age, but how diet might affect underlying aging processes is unknown. In light of recent studies showing that vitamin supplements are mostly not helpful and may be harmful, it is increasingly clear that molecule-by-molecule approaches to guiding nutrition are not sufficient. However, we would like to provide more precise nutritional guidance to older adults than "eat well." There is very little scientific understanding of how nutrition affects the physiological dysregulation that underlies aging, in part because the cellular and molecular links are complex and the fundamental mechanisms of aging remain controversial. Addressing this problem is not simple. We need to (1) find appropriate ways to simplify and accurately measure the complexity of what people eat, and of underlying biological aging processes; (2) use data sets that permit us to see how one affects the other within aging individuals over many years; and (3) use appropriate, robust statistical approaches that let us examine how both nutrition and underlying biology change with age, and how each of these changing systems affects the other as it changes. The four researchers here have exactly this expertise, and we will use the only cohort study in the world with sufficiently detailed data on both nutrition and biomarkers during aging. Innovative and validated statistical methods let us extract key signals from complex data on nutrition and aging biology, and then combine them to see how their trajectories interact. The results of our study will (a) help us understand the biological links between nutrition and the aging process; and (b) allow us to develop clinical and public health guidelines for dietary changes to propose to aging adults exhibiting specific types of physiological dysregulation, measurable through biomarker profiles.