Vegetarian diets, circulating miRNA expression and healthspan in subjects living in the Blue Zone. Issue 4 (23rd October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Liu, Tiantian; Gatto, Nicole M; Chen, Zhong; Qiu, Hongyu; Lee, Grace; Duerksen-Hughes, Penelope; Fraser, Gary; Wang, Charles
• Is Part Of: Precision clinical medicine. Volume 3:Issue 4(2020)
• Page Start: 245
• Page End: 259
• Publication Date: 2020-10-23
• Subjects: circulating miRNA -- aging -- miRNA sequencing -- vegetarian diet -- Blue Zone; Medicine -- Periodicals; Medical care -- Periodicals; Personalized medicine -- Periodicals; 610
• DOI: 10.1093/pcmedi/pbaa037
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2096-5303

Abstract

Abstract: A long-term vegetarian diet plays a role in the longevity and maintenance of the healthspan, but the underlying mechanisms for these observations are largely unknown. Particularly, it is not known whether a long-term vegetarian dietary pattern may affect the circulating miRNA expression in such a way as to modulate the healthspan. The Adventist Health Study-2 (AHS-2) cohort includes a large number of older adults who primarily follow vegetarian dietary patterns and reside in Loma Linda, California, one of five "Blue Zones" in the world in which a higher proportion of the population enjoys a longer than average lifespan. We performed miRNA-seq in 96 subjects selected from the AHS-2 cohort with different dietary patterns. We identified several differentially expressed miRNAs between vegetarians and non-vegetarians, which are involved in immune response and cytokine signaling, cell growth and proliferation as well as age-related diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative diseases. Overall, our study showed that a vegetarian diet modulates aging-associated circulating miRNAs in a sex-dependent manner of differential expression for certain miRNAs, which may be related in a beneficial manner to the healthspan. Further investigation is needed to validate these miRNAs as potential biomarkers for diet-modulated longevity in humans.