Ditching meat and dairy for just one month may add years to your life, a new study shows.
People who went vegan for four weeks saw shocking DNA changes linked to lower inflammation and slower aging compared with those eating meat-rich diets.
Researchers wanted to see whether changing what people eat can quickly affect how their bodies work at the cellular level, finding that meatless eaters had biological markers linked to a less inflamed immune system.
The vegan diet also appeared to reduce activity in genes involved in cancer-related pathways and may help slow biological aging. The new findings show how quickly diet can affect the body's cells and potentially impact long-term health.
In the study, published in the journal MedComm, researchers randomly assigned 48 adults to a vegan or meat-rich diet for one month. Both diets had similar calorie counts, so weight loss wouldn’t influence the results.
