Image copyright TEK IMAGE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY 
 
 Following a Mediterranean diet might be a recipe for a long life because it appears to keep people genetically younger, say US researchers. 
 
 Its mix of vegetables, olive oil, fresh fish and fruits may stop our DNA code from scrambling as we age, according to a study in the British Medical Journal. 
 
 Nurses who adhered to the diet had fewer signs of ageing in their cells. 
 
 The researchers from Boston followed the health of nearly 5,000 nurses over more than a decade. 
 
 The Mediterranean diet has been repeatedly linked to health gains, such as cutting the risk of heart disease. 
 
 These results reinforce our advice that eating a balanced and healthy diet can reduce your risk of developing heart disease Dr Mike Knapton of the British Heart Foundation 
 
 Although it's not clear exactly what makes it so good, its key components - an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables as well as poultry and fish, rather than lots of red meat, butter and animal fats - all have well documented beneficial effects on the body. 
 
 Foods rich in vitamins appear to provide a buffer against stress and damage of tissues and cells. And it appears from this latest study that a Mediterranean diet helps protect our DNA. 
 
 Telomeres 
 
 The researchers looked at tiny structures called telomeres that safeguard the ends of our chromosomes, which store our DNA code. 
 
 These protective caps prevent the loss of genetic information during cell division. 
 
 Image copyright SPL Image caption Telomeres cap the end of our chromosomes 
 
 As we age and our cells divide, our telomeres get shorter - their structural integrity weakens, which can tell cells to stop dividing and die. 
 
 Experts believe telomere length offers a window on cellular ageing. 
 
 Shorter telomeres have been linked with a broad range of age-related diseases, including heart disease, and a variety of cancers. 
 
 In the study, nurses who largely stuck to eating a Mediterranean diet had longer, healthier telomeres. 
 
 No individual dietary component shone out as best, which the researchers say highlights the importance of having a well-rounded diet. 
 
 Independent experts said the findings were interesting but by no means conclusive. 
 
 Dr David Llewellyn, senior research fellow in clinical epidemiology at the University of Exeter, said: "All observational studies have the potential to produce misleading estimates, and we should not assume that the association with telomere length is necessarily causal. 
 
 "That said, this large well-conducted study is consistent with the hypothesis that dietary interventions may lead to substantial improvements in health." 
 
 The British Heart Foundation said: "These results reinforce our advice that eating a balanced and healthy diet can reduce your risk of developing heart disease." ||||| Dieters hoping to shed the pounds should watch the clock as much as their calories after scientists discovered that limiting the hours we eat stops weight gain. 
 
 Confining meals to a 12 hour window, such as 8am to 8pm, and fasting for the remaining day, appears to make a huge difference to whether fat is stored, or burned up by the body. 
 
 Researchers at The Salk Institute in the US, said it adds more evidence to studies which show that eating late at night causes weight gain. 
 
 They suggest restricting eating hours could help fight high cholesterol, diabetes and obesity. 
 
 "These days, most of the advice is, 'You have to change nutrition, you have to eat a healthy diet,'" said associate professor Satchidananda Panda 
 
 "But many people don't have access to healthy diets. So the question is, without access to a healthy diet, can they still practice time-restricted feeding and reap some benefit?" 
 
 The researchers studied 400 mice, ranging from normal to obese who were placed on various types of diets and lengths of time restrictions. 
 
 They showed that mice which were fed a high-fat diet, but allowed access to food for only 12 hours per day, were healthier and slimmer than mice given access to the same food for the whole day, even though the two groups consumed the same number of calories. 
 
 The results were the same even if the diets were high fat, high sugar, or high fruit sugars. 
 
 The study also suggests that the odd blip is unlikely to make a difference. A late night weekend takeaway, for example, is unlikely to harm the body's metabolism. However regularly eating at night would have a big impact. 
 
 "The fact that it worked no matter what the diet, and the fact that it worked over the weekend and weekdays, was a very nice surprise," says the study's first author Amandine Chaix, a postdoctoral researcher in Prof Panda's lab. 
 
 Mice who had become obese by eating whenever they liked during the day, lost five per cent of their bodyweight, when put on restricted within just a few days. At the end 38 week study, they were 25 per cent lighter than the group who had continued to eat freely. 
 
 Although mice on a healthy diet did not lose more weight, they gained muscle mass, the study which was published in the journal Cell Metabolism showed. 
 
 "It's an interesting observation that although the mice on a normal diet did not lose weight, they changed their body composition," added Prof Panda. 
 
 "That brings up the question--what happens? Are these mice maintaining their muscle mass which might have been lost with free feeding, or are they gaining muscle mass?" 
 
 A second study found that sticking to a Mediterranean diet can protect the DNA from ageing. 
 
 Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in the US found that a diet high in olive oil, fresh fruit and vegetables and nuts, was associated with longer telomeres. 
 
 Telomeres are the protective caps which sit at the end of chromosomes and prevent damage to the DNA, much like the plastic caps on the end of shoelaces. 
 
 Previous studies have shown that short telomeres are associated with disease and advanced ageing. 
 
 "To our knowledge this is the largest population-based study specifically addressing the association between Mediterranean diet adherence and telomere length in healthy, middle-aged women," explained Immaculata De Vivo, PhD, MPH, an associate professor in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at BWH and Harvard School of Public Health and senior author of this study. 
 
 "Our results further support the benefits of adherence to this diet to promote health and longevity." 
 
 Dr Mike Knapton, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “This large study adds to the body of evidence that longer telomeres are found in those who eat a Mediterranean diet. 
 
 “Longer telomeres may partially explain the link between diet and risk of cardiovascular disease. 
 
 “Previous findings from the same study had shown that those with unhealthy lifestyles had shorter telomeres. 
 
 “These results reinforce our advice that eating a balanced and healthy diet can reduce your risk of developing heart disease.” 
 
 The study was published in the British Medical Journal. ||||| Photo 
 
 The Mediterranean diet — higher in vegetables, fruits, whole grains and olive oil, and lower in dairy products and meat — has long been cited for its health-promoting benefits. Researchers have new clues as to why. 
 
 They found that the diet was associated with longer telomeres, the protective structures at the end of chromosomes. Shorter telomeres are associated with age-related chronic diseases and reduced life expectancy. 
 
 Researchers used data on 4,676 healthy women, part of a larger health study, whose diets were ranked on a scale of one to nine for similarity to the ideal Mediterranean diet. Researchers measured their telomere lengths with blood tests and followed them for more than 20 years with periodic examinations. 
 
 The study, published in the journal BMJ, controlled for body mass index, smoking, physical activity, reproductive history and other factors, and found that the higher the score for adherence to the diet, the longer the telomeres. The difference in telomere length for each point on the adherence scale, the researchers estimate, was equivalent to an average one and a half years of life. 
 
 “Based on our data,” said the lead author, Marta Crous-Bou, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, “a three-point change in the adherence score is equivalent to 4.5 years of aging, a difference comparable to that between smokers and nonsmokers.”
– A new study finds that following the Mediterranean diet could add about 4.5 years to your life. Researchers found that the diet, which focuses on fruits, veggies, whole grains, and olive oil, is good for our DNA, the New York Times reports. Nearly 4,700 women were followed for more than 20 years, and those whose diets were more similar to the Mediterranean diet had longer telomeres—protective structures found on the ends of chromosomes that "are often compared to the plastic caps that prevent shoelaces from unravelling," as Larry Husten explains at Forbes. Shorter telomeres have been linked to shorter life expectancy and chronic diseases associated with aging. Chromosomes store our DNA code, and telomeres help to prevent the loss of genetic information—so the Mediterranean diet appears to "stop our DNA code from scrambling as we age," thus keeping us "genetically younger," writes Michelle Roberts at the BBC. But Husten cautions that, though the diet has been linked to other health benefits in the past, this study shouldn't be given too much weight. It appears to be "excellent" and "well-performed," he writes, but it was an observational study, and as such has limitations—for example, it's possible that there were already genetic differences between subjects who adhered to the diet and those who didn't.