Diet doesn’t just fuel the body, it sends molecular signals that can slow down or speed up biological ageing, according to a new perspective recently published in npj Aging (Nature Portfolio).
The authors explain that biological age, a measure of functional health, can diverge sharply from chronological age and that targeted nutritional and lifestyle choices can bend the trajectory toward healthier ageing.
“Nutrition is one of the strongest levers we have to influence the rate of biological ageing and resilience against chronic disease,” said one of the paper’s authors from the University of Eastern Finland. “Our goal is to move from ‘one-size-fits-all’ advice to targeted dietary strategies that measurably shift biological age.”
Bending the aging curve
Summing up recent research, the authors propose that lifestyle choices like diet, physical activity, sleep and social engagement can bend the aging curve – enabling optimal aging. People aging optimally maintain a biological age younger than their chronological age, while unhealthy habits accelerate aging and heighten disease risk.
Food contains thousands of bioactive compounds that act as molecular signals and, according to the authors, could be specifically harnessed to modulate biological age.
Biological age can be tracked using aging clocks – computational biomarker models based on epigenetic, proteomic or microbiome data.
Whole diets still win – the gut microbiome is the target
Research has shown that long-term adherence to plant-rich healthy eating patterns such as the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet can up to double the odds of aging healthily, preserving cognitive, physical and mental function into older age.
The article highlights the gut microbiome as a central target of dietary interventions to slow down aging.
Diet strongly shapes the gut microbiome, which in turn modulates inflammation, circadian rhythms and immune resilience, offering multiple levers for precision nutrition interventions.
Call to action for healthy aging
With aging populations worldwide, preventive approaches are urgent. To translate the recent advances in research and technology into meaningful change, the researchers call for action in several areas. These include:
- Validation and standardization of aging biomarkers
- Mapping the food-derived bioactive compounds and their targets to uncover new dietary modulators
- Building cross-sector partnerships to bring precision nutrition from the lab into clinics, communities and public health policies.
Source: npj Aging, August 20, 2025
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