Eating Less Leads To A Healthier Heart

Eating less isn't just for dieters or supermodels anymore. It turns out that people with less caloric intake have healthier hearts, and can live longer.

The study focused on heart rate variability, or the heart's ability to change in response to stimuli, and heart rates. Heart rate variability can be a good indicator of how the heart reacts to physical activity, stress, sleep, and other metabolic factors.

Limiting caloric intake for around seven years can make the heart look up to 20 years younger.

"This is really striking because in studying changes in heart rate variability, we are looking at a measurement that tells us a lot about the way the autonomic nervous system affects the heart," says senior author Luigi Fontana M.D, Ph.D.

"And that system is involved not only in heart function, but in digestion, breathing rate and many other involuntary actions. We would hypothesize that better heart rate variability may be a sign that all these other functions are working better, too."

22 participants who restricted their caloric intake by thirty percent but still ate healthy were monitored against those who didn't practice caloric intake. Those who ate fewer calories ended up having lower heart rates and higher heart rate variability.

"Heart rate variability declines with age as our cardiovascular systems become less flexible, and poor heart rate variability is associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular death." says author Phyllis K. Stein Ph.D.

Previous studies in to caloric restriction have shown that animals that practice it can live 30 to 40 percent longer. This is one of the first times that caloric restriction along with an optimal diet has been studied.

"The idea was to learn, first of all, whether humans on CR, like the calorie-restricted animals that have been studied, have a similar adaptation in heart rate variability," said Fontana. "The answer is yes. We also looked at normal levels of heart rate variability among people at different ages, and we found that those who practice CR have hearts that look and function like they are years younger."

But don't think that simply eating less will save your heart.

"People who practice CR tend to be very healthy in other areas of life, too, so I'm pretty sure they don't say to themselves, 'Okay, I'll restrict my calorie intake to lengthen my life, but I'm still going to smoke two packs a day.' These people are very motivated, and they tend to engage in a large number of very healthy behaviors," says Stein.