The Anti-Fountain of Youth Protein: Methionine

Tuna is still one of the most healthful sources of protein, but...

Bottom line: a 40% decrease in calorie consumption over the adult life of an animal has been confirmed for decades to dramatically increase the healthy lifespan of the animal.  And now, researchers are finding that animals eating a normal amount of calories each day but decreasing protein (or, specifically, methionine) intake by 40% over the animal's life has similarly dramatic anti-aging effects.

There's one specific building block of protein that's the main culprit in causing cell damage and aging: methionine.  It's in all the most common protein-laden foods we like to eat, from eggs to beef or chicken to vegan options like tofu and algae.  (But keep in mind some foods have proteins with more of the methionine building block than other foods.)

Here's a useful, extensive listing of all the most common...and not so common (it might not be such a struggle to decrease your Beluga whale or free-range elk consumption!) foods with the highest amount of the methionine protein per serving.

Even the healthy egg should be eaten in moderation.

Ummm yeah, so the amino acid methionine seems to be completely unavoidable!  So we all need protein to live, and no matter which food our protein source is, it seems we're going to end up eating methionine in the food.  So, why would I even bother to tell you this?

Well, luckily scientists found in their studies that there were huge reductions in the amount of aging-type cellular damage found in the animals with just a 40% decrease in methionine intake.  That's great news!  Forty percent is a completely reasonable decrease that still lets us get our basic protein needs met.

Replace a few meaty dishes each week with a hearty veggie alternative and you're well on your way to drastically decreasing how much methionine you eat.

By the way, this research is an exciting extension on the decades of laboratory research on "dietary restriction" (DR) or "caloric restriction" (CR) in creatures varying in complexity from yeast to mice to monkeys.  Piles of research agreed that these DR or CR diets in which the number of calories was decreased by some signification portion (often around 40%) succeeded in increasing high-quality lifespan dramatically in all these creatures.  This result has been one of the best and most universally supported research findings in medicine.

Only recently have the researchers been studying each part of the diet one at a time...and that's when they found this gold mine result that the protein intake--specifically, the methionine intake--was the main factor that caused this increase in lifespan.