Diet Quality Linked to Epigenetic Aging Pace in German Adults, Study Finds
A study involving 6,470 German adults has found that adherence to various healthy diet patterns is associated with a slower pace of biological aging, as measured by DNA methylation. Researchers at the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases assessed participants against ten established diet quality indexes, including the Mediterranean Diet Score, DASH, and the MIND diet, and compared these scores to epigenetic aging measures like GrimAge acceleration, PhenoAge acceleration, and DunedinPACE. The findings, replicated in a separate cohort of 1,034 adults, indicated that all ten diet quality scores were significantly linked to DunedinPACE, with eight healthy patterns correlating with slower aging and two unhealthy ones with faster aging. While the specific diets showed minimal overlap in the individual methylation sites they affected, over 70% of the involved biological pathways converged, primarily governing cell structure, signaling, and metabolism. The DASH and Nordic diets were consistently linked to ... 
