Adult Stem Cells Get a Boost from Fasting

A calorie-restricted diet is often said to enhance longevity. Less frequently discussed, and poorly understood, is why fasting should slow aging, or delay the loss of tissue function associated with aging. To better understand how fasting confers its putative benefits, MIT biologists studied a kind of tissue renewal, the maintenance of the lining of the intestine. To renew itself every five days, the lining depends on the regenerative capacity of stem cells, which declines as we age.Fasting, the