Mediterranean diet, stress resilience, and aging in nonhuman primates

Since the impact of diet on stress reactive systems has not been tested long-term, Shively et al. (2020) fed a proportion of 38 adult, socially-housed, female cynomolgus macaques with the western diet and another with the Mediterranean diet, both for 31 months (which is equivalent to 9 human years) in order to analyze the difference in long-term effects on behavioral and physiological responses to acute (brief social separation) and chronic (social subordination) psychosocial stress. Enhanced stress resilience was observed in the macaques fed the Mediterranean diet relative to those fed the western-style foods, indicated by the brisker and more overt heart rate responses to acute stress, the lower sympathetic activity, quicker recovery, and lower cortisol responses to acute psychological stress and adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) challenge. In addition, the Mediterranean diet appeared to delay the age-related increases in sympathetic activity and cortisol responses to stress. These findings imply that implementing a Mediterranean-like dietary pattern could be a cost-effective intervention on psychological stress, and could potentially promote healthy aging. [NPID: stress, Western-style diet, WS diet, behavior, social separation, social subordination, Mediterranean diet, Med diet, cortisol, healthy aging, aging]

Year: 2020

Reference: Shively, C. A., Appt, S. E., Chen, H., Day, S. M., Frye, B. M., Shaltout, H. A., Silverstein-Metzler, M. G., Snyder-Mackler, N., Uberseder, B., Vitolins, M. Z., & Register, T. C. (2020). Mediterranean diet, stress resilience, and aging in nonhuman primates. Neurobiology of stress, 13, 100254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2020.100254