Good news for cheese lovers: a new study has revealed that eating aged cheese could be linked to a higher life expectancy. No need to feel guilty about working your way through that wheel of brie, then…
Researchers at Texas A&M University found that eating cheeses like brie, cheddar, gouda, parmesan and gruyere could help prevent liver disease (and thus help us live longer) thanks to the presence of spermidine, a naturally occurring compound.
According to the study, which was recently published in the journal Cancer Research, spermidine helped to prevent the most common type of liver cancer by stopping the damaged cells from replicating.
The compound is also found in mushrooms, legumes, whole grains and soy products.
The study’s authors suggest that, should you consume plenty of the compound from an early age, you could raise your life expectancy from 81 right up to 100, though eating any amount of spermidine could still have a positive impact.
Leyuan Liu, assistant professor at Texas A&M’s Institute of Biosciences and Technology, explained that there are only a handful of factors definitively proven to increase life expectancy. ‘Severely cutting the number of calories consumed, restricting the amount of methionine (a type of amino acid found in meat and other proteins) in the diet and using the drug rapamycin have been shown to truly prolong the lifespans of vertebrates,’ he said.
‘But eating less and not eating meat will not be welcomed by general population, while rapamycin has shown to suppress the human immune system – therefore, spermidine may be a better approach.’
We’ll take the cheese board, then…