Can expired foods shorten our lifespan?

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Maybe you should pay more attention to the expiry date of your food in the future after all. A Harvard University study shows that eating food past its expiration date could lead to an earlier death. The study results were published in the journal “Science Advances.“

Harvard professor Vadim Gladyshev investigated the causes of aging. He found that molecular damage to human cells is partly responsible. Moreover, this damage could be caused by eating old food. “This damage is produced by almost every cellular process. So over time, we have a lot of ‘types of damage’ that accumulate depending on age,” the physician explained in “Harvard Magazine.“

To test this theory about food, the researchers fed a yeast fungus, fruit flies, and mice with various old foods.

They found that the old food consistently shortened the lifespan of the animals and the yeast by 10 percent each.

However, the expired food in the mice led to earlier death only in the female mice.

However, the mice had been eating a regular diet before the experiment, so the study period may have been too short to detect a significant difference.

More fruit and vegetables for a longer life?

“The results show us that these accumulated age-related changes are harmful. This provides a fundamental insight into the aging process,” Gladyshev explained. However, further studies on the subject are still pending.

Gladyshev nevertheless posed how to slow down the aging process: “How can we restructure cellular metabolism so that this damage accumulates more slowly?”

Eating eight servings of fresh fruit and vegetables a day could be the answer. As a recent study by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) shows, there is a possibility that this diet may even extend lifespan.

“So the question is, how can we slow down this process?” asks Gladyshev. “How can we restructure cellular metabolism so that this damage accumulates more slowly?”

Perhaps eating eight servings of fresh fruit and vegetables a day could be one way. Another recent study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology shows that this practice can extend lifespan.