Can a longevity diet really slow the signs of ageing?

Often, when I talk to relatives or friends about healthy eating or a particular healthy eating habit, I hear the reply, “Why give up so many pleasures? Our fate depends on our genes anyway.” And while this is partly true, research teaches us that everyone’s eating habits and lifestyle largely influence the quality of our lives. One area of genetics, epigenetics, is concerned with studying how the environment around us, and especially our daily behaviour and habits (including eating habits), affect the expression of the genes we have inherited, encased in DNA. In other words, it reveals that we are not at the mercy of our genetic inheritance. We can take our destiny into our own hands by determining how our cells behave through our daily choices, whether physical activity, stress management, social relationships, exposure to pollution or nutrition, a crucial factor in gene expression.

How do we nourish ourselves to express our protective and longevity genes and “turn off” those related to inflammation? By adopting the epigenetic diet, a type of nutrition that helps express genes that reduce inflammation, slow ageing and reduce our biological age. This approach overlaps with what many know as a bold longevity diet, since the goal is to support long-term health through targeted foods. As explained by an authority on the subject: Dr Lucia Aronica, professor and researcher at Stanford University, a leading expert on epigenetics whose work has even appeared on Netflix.

How does nutrition affect our genes?

Food is not just calories: it’s code. Every bite we eat sends precise instructions to our genes, turning them on or off like molecular switches. This happens through epigenetics, chemical changes that sit “on top” of DNA (from the Greek “epi” = on top) and regulate its expression without changing its sequence. Think of your DNA as computer hardware. Epigenetics is the software, and what you eat reprogrammes it every day. Epinutrients in food, from broccoli to eggs, fish to green leafy vegetables, communicate with special enzymes that write or erase these epigenetic marks, just like editors reviewing a text. The most powerful message? We are not passive readers of our genetic code; we are active authors of our health story. While we cannot change the words (the genes), we can choose how we use them through daily choices that influence gene expression.

What is an epigenetic diet or nutrition?

I do not call it “epigenetic diet” (the name “diet” is often, though mistakenly, associated with “restriction”). I call it epinutrition, a practical approach I developed at Stanford to support gene expression through nutrition. Epinutrition is like a friendship between plant and animal foods, where each offers unique benefits. It is based on two basic categories of epinutrients, nutrients essential for the functioning of our epigenetic processes:

Methyl donors (such as folate, B12, choline and betaine): they provide the building blocks for epigenetic changes. We find them both in green leafy vegetables and in animal foods such as eggs, liver and fish.