How Fasting Works Differently After 60

…and other items from this week’s health science news:

Not so fast!

Fasting has been popularly lauded (including by us!) for its metabolic benefits, but it’s important to remember that not all things work the same way for all people. We’ve covered this a bit before, as you can see in the “Related” link below, with a previous article of course about why intermitting fasting might not work for you.

More recently, researchers (Dr. Kaijun Xing et al.) did a review of 28 clinical trials involving 1,833 adults, and found that intermittent fasting consistently reduced body weight and BMI across age groups and sexes.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

However…

While weight loss indeed occurred regardless of age, the metabolic effects differed substantially between younger and older adults. Specifically, weight loss from fasting wasn’t always limited to body fat, with previous research showing that 20–30% of lost weight is often lean mass, and one fasting trial reporting that 65% of the weight lost came from lean tissue (not fat)!

Why this matters more after 60:

1. Older adults usually lose muscle mass with age, so additional muscle loss during fasting could increase the risk of weakness, reduced physical function, and frailty.
2. Despite improvements in many metabolic markers, the review found that LDL cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol) tended to increase on average across age group.
   

So in other words, if you’re over 60 and “on the fence” about intermittent fasting, it might be as well to choose a different method of meeting your health goals!

Read in full: Fasting after 60 changes more than waistlines, exposing a trade-off many dieters never see coming

Related: Why Intermittent Fasting (& GLP-1 Drugs!) Might Not Work For You

Creatine vs cancer?

Creatine is mostly thought of as a muscle-building supplement, and in young people it mostly is that (in older people, it’s more of a brain-boosting supplement).

However, it’s been discovered to have more benefits—specifically that it improves the function of dendritic cells, which are immune cells that detect cancer and activate killer T-cells to deal with same (as well as various other maladies).

This is important, as most current cancer immunotherapies focus directly on T-cells, while only about 20%–40% of patients respond to those therapies. In other words, strengthening dendritic cells could improve the effectiveness of immunotherapy in a way that actually works!

Read in full: Popular supplement creatine supercharges critical immune cells fighting cancer

Related: What does it mean to be immunocompromised?

How old is your face?

Researchers (Dr. Yuanyuan Diao et al.) invesgitated the relationships between chronological age, physical signs of aging in the face, and perceived age, in hundreds of women aged 15–65.

To examine both the objective and subjective side of things,

❝Participants underwent expert assessment of aging features, standardized facial image acquisition, and perceived-age evaluation based on photographs by non-expert assessors. The study further collected information on the facial characteristics and regions influencing age perception and grouped participants according to the difference between perceived and chronological age❞

As for the results, overall the women were perceived to be, on average, 1.6 years older than they were, and…

❝Nasolabial fold, marionette fold, tightness of facial contour, poor skin evenness, and poor skin radiance were common key factors for age perception❞

…which does make it interesting that age is, on average, overestimated in women—perhaps due to media saturation of well-airbrushed celebrities moving the benchmark of what any given age looks like?

Read in full: Study evaluates how facial aging features influence age perception in women

Related: Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents & Flourishing As We Age – by Dr. Mary Pipher ← this very good book deals mostly with the intersectionality of ageism and misogyny; everyone should definitely read it!

Take care!