A new research study at UW-Madison will investigate how tinkering with the amount of specific building blocks of protein in the diet affects healthy aging.

Dudley Lamming, PhD (pictured at upper right), assistant professor, Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, has been awarded $2.26M over five years (R01 award) by the National Institutes of Health for a proposal entitled, “The regulation of health and longevity by branched-chain amino acids."

Co-investigators are Matthew Merrins, PhD (pictured at lower right), assistant professor, Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism and Timothy Hacker, PhD (not pictured), senior scientist, Cardiovascular Research Center.

Working in mice, the team will test the hypothesis that a diet low in the branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) leucine, isoleucine, and valine can promote health an longevity. The researchers will examine the effect of long-term, Low BCAA diet on mouse lifespan, metabolic health, and frailty, as well as test the efficacy of short-term Low BCAA diet feeding as a late-life intervention.

Additional experiments using liver and pancreatic islet cells will test the effects of BCAAs and their breakdown products at the cellular level, in an effort to determine the mechanism of BCAA impact on metabolic processes.

The research is aimed at determining whether BCAA levels may mediate previously reported health- and longevity-promoting effects of calorie-restricted or low-protein diets.

Resources:

• "The regulation of health and longevity by branched-chain amino acids," NIH Granteome

Photo caption: Graduate student Nicole Cummings (left) looks over data with Dr. Dudley Lamming (right). Photo credit: Clint Thayer/Department of Medicine