Anti-inflammatory mechanisms of dietary restriction in slowing aging processes.

Dietary restriction (DR) remains the most powerful and general environmental manipulation of aging processes in laboratory animals with strong beneficial effects on most age-related degenerative changes throughout the body. Underlying the beneficial effects of DR is the attenuation of system-wide inflammatory processes including those occurring within the central nervous system. During normal aging a progressive neuroinflammatory state builds in the brain involving astrocytes and microglia, the primary cellular components of neuroinflammation. DR attenuates the age-related activation of astrocytes and microglia with concomitant beneficial effects on neurodegeneration and cognition. Increasing evidence suggests that common pathways are emerging that link many normal aging inflammatory processes with age-related diseases such as Alzheimer, cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.