Simply swapping to the low-carb, high-fat Atkins diet ‘could add TEN YEARS to your lifespan’
STICKING to the Atkins diet could boost life expectancy by a decade, research suggests.
Experts found ditching carb-rich food for high-fat meals seems to protect against memory and muscle loss.
Tests on mice found it extended their average lifespan by 13 per cent.
California University scientists said the results were “surprising”.
And claimed in humans, the improvement would equate to an extra seven to ten years of life.
The diet, which involves avoiding carbohydrates such as bread, pasta and rice, forces the body to use fat for fuel.
It does this by breaking them down into acids called ketones, which can be burned for energy.
Scientists believe this process may help protect against brain ageing.
Researcher Dr Eric Verdin, President of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, said: “The fact that we had such an effect on memory and preservation of brain function is really exciting.
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“The older mice on the ketogenic [high fat] diet had a better memory than the younger mice. That’s really remarkable.”
The study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, involved three groups of rodents.
One was fed a normal diet, another a high-fat, low-carb diet, and the third had meals made up of 90 per cent fat.
All had the same amount of calories.
Lead researcher Jon Ramsey, a nutritionist from UC Davis, said: “I was impressed by the magnitude we observed - a 13 percent increase in median [average] life span for the mice on a high fat versus a high carb diet.
“In humans, that would be seven to 10 years. But equally important, those mice retained quality of health in later life.”
Experts are now exploring whether the diet could protect against Alzheimer’s.
The findings come a week after a major study warned eating a low-fat diet could kill you.
It revealed cutting back on food such as butter, cheese and red meat raised risks of an early death by a quarter.
Too much carbohydrate-rich food was much more likely to shorten life expectancy.
