Sunday Science Diet Comparison and Aging 2026_07_12

https://youtu.be/biQGTWKOmhA

Sunday Science: Biological Aging and Dietary Patterns

Speaker Contributions

Dr. Brent Laartz: Presented a detailed analysis of a UK Biobank study involving 400,000 participants. He evaluated the correlation between dietary patterns—specifically regular meat-eating, low-meat, pescatarian, and vegetarian diets—and biological aging using KDM-BA and PhenoAge metrics.

Key Points and Decisions

Study Findings: The research demonstrated that individuals who consume less meat, or follow pescatarian or vegetarian diets, exhibit a lower biological age compared to regular meat-eaters.

Genetic Independence: These findings remained consistent across all genetic risk categories (low, medium, and high), suggesting that diet plays a significant role in aging regardless of polygenic risk scores.

Longitudinal Impact: Data collected over a 4.4-year follow-up period confirmed that participants with lower meat intake experienced slower biological aging compared to the baseline of regular meat-eaters.

Dietary Conclusion: Dr. Laartz concluded that while individual dietary tolerance varies, the data strongly supports the longevity benefits of diets characterized by reduced meat consumption, such as Mediterranean, pescatarian, or vegetarian patterns.

Next Steps

Resource Sharing: Dr. Laartz committed to providing the full study, titled "Biological Aging Across Regular Meat, Low Meat, Pescatarian, and Vegetarian Dietary Patterns," in the episode show notes.

Audience Engagement: Listeners are encouraged to access further longevity research and video content via GoUnPro.com, YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

Announcer Lucas

[ 00:00:00,000 ]Welcome to Sunday Science, where we dive into a few recent scientific articles and their translation into our modern lives. Here is your host, Brent W. Lartz, M. D.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:12,690 ] All right, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Sunday Science. Here we're going to be discussing an article, just a single article this week. Because I'm kind of on vacation here. What a beautiful place this is. You can see, you can't see, but I can see right out the window here, Clearwater, Florida, on the beach, enjoying a beautiful vacation.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:35,300 ] But— I'm going to be working a little bit, just a little bit, reviewing an article here. This is a really good article about biological aging across different diets. They took... um out of the UK.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:50,400 ] Biobank.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:52,750 ] They took it.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:54,500 ] 800,000, sorry, 400,000 people.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:59,970 ] Out of those, they found that there were 213,000 meat eaters, and that was called regular meat eaters. The defined as greater than five days of eating either red meat or poultry per week. And then they defined another subset that was low meat eaters. These were people who ate less than five days of meat, poultry or red meat for a week. Those that were called Pescatarians— only fish— and no meat or poultry. Then they had another subset, and that was 9,313 out of the 400,000 people. 7,477 additional people were defined as vegetarians. These were people who ate no meat or fish. Some of them could have been um Derry. They could have had dairy or not. So there were about 1,500 people, I think that the number was, out of those that were completely vegan.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:02,410 ] And then they... took those patients that were in that. And they had multiple different blood tests. Available to this study.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:15,010 ] And they were able to match.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:17,560 ] 8,000 of those that had a median follow-up of four years.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:22,470 ] And then could detect. Based on the blood tests at or plus years later. Whether or not they had an accelerated biological age.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:33,120 ] So they did two different calculations. The Climera-Dubal method.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:40,610 ] KDMA message. Which includes the forced expiratory volume in one second, the FEV1, systolic blood pressure, albumin, alkaline phosphate. BUN, creatinine, CRP, glycated hemoglobin, and total cholesterol.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:57,590 ] Which is an extensive biological age. Method okay. So then they also had a pheno age, which has a shortened or abbreviated number of biomarkers. And they took these two different scores of biological age. And then they also were able to categorize these people based on a biological... So they were also able to categorize these persons by a PRS. Which is called the polygenic risk score. This score is a genetic score based on different genes as to the risk of mortality, low, medium, and high risk. Three categories and they were able to tease these out again.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:03:56,550 ] To make sure that there was not any genetics cause of this. Okay, so and here's, so here's what we found. So at the baseline, again, $400,000. people. And it had a baseline. And I'll bring this up here.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:13,760 ] The... KDMBA acceleration so you can see for those of you on the video podcast.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:21,000 ] This shows the KDMBA acceleration. So they take the regular meat eaters. And... They use those as the baseline of zero.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:34,110 ] And then you.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:35,750 ] Compare the low meat eaters, the fish eaters, and the vegetarians. So in the low genetics, risk category, there is approximately minus 0. 56 beta coefficient. So in other words, for every year that the regular meat eaters had for a biological age, the low meat eaters were 0. 5 less. So in other words, they were approximately 0. 5 years less of a biological age. Fish eaters had an average of minus two.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:08,220 ] Vegetarians also minus two, a little bit more. Decrease in the Biological age for the fish eaters. In most of these calculations. So approximately minus two years. For the biological age according to the KDM. B.A. Acceleration.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:27,200 ] For the low genetic risk. And this held steady for the medium and high genetic risk. So, regardless of whether your genetic risk was low, medium, or high.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:38,930 ] Hello, meat eaters. At a slightly lower biological age. The fish eaters and the vegetarians had at least two years, two to three years, less of a biological age. Regardless of their genetic risk. Again, here you can see in the medium genetic risk that it was approximately 2. 32 for the fish eaters, negative 2. 74 for the vegetarian.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:07,160 ] Again, here, look right here to the high genetic risk. Minus 0. 67 for the low meat eaters, approximately one year less, and this was statistically significant.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:21,590 ] And then the fish eaters, minus 2. 61. Vegetarians, minus 2. 1. And you think, why would that be? Why would fish eaters be any better?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:31,230 ] Somewhat obvious could be some different nutrients that you get such as perhaps omega-3 oils, uh, from the fish. Eating okay, so here, with the Phenoage, again, phenoage is a abbreviated panel of phenol age acceleration. You can see that, regardless of low genetic risk, medium genetic risk, or high genetic risk, approximately 0. 2 to 0. 6 years difference in biological age.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:11,510 ] Uh, based on that, so again, decreased biological age acceleration amongst these people using the phenol age acceleration.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:21,850 ] The really important part here is really the next slide that I'll show you. And this slide is showing the acceleration. In other words, the comparison.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:33,360 ] from the baseline. to the end. And so you have.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:38,880 ] a with a consistent diet pattern of a regular meat eating. At zero, you can for 4 800 regular mediators. There were 3 ,400 low meat eaters, and they aged over that 4 . 4 years. almost one year less.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:59,090 ] during that 4 . 4 years. And the fish eaters aged approximately 1 . 78 years less, and the vegetarians approximately 2 . 3 years less. And this was on the KDM. VA Acceleration. Uh pattern.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:08:15,830 ] Then, with the pheno age, again, the abbreviated numbers here of anywhere from 0. 2 to 0. 5 years less of an age acceleration over that 4. 4 years. So, pretty significant there. Showing that, that there was.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:08:35,900 ] A major decrease.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:08:38,630 ] In the aging of those people who were either lower meat eaters, Although that was a little bit less. And.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:08:48,280 ] the Persons who are either pescatarians or vegetarians had a marked decrease in the biological age acceleration from baseline. to 4. 4 years later. Again, so.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:02,820 ] Really striking. And again, we've... had a lot of data regarding this kind of pattern for biological age.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:14,330 ] In the show notes, we're going to give you the article. This is in the Clinical Nutrition Journal.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:21,870 ] The article name is Biological Aging Across Regular Meat, Low Meat, Pescatarian, and Vegetarian Dietary Patterns, a Population-Based Cohort Study. So a lot of other studies have had just either a cohort snapshot. This gave us a snapshot of this. And also then... Talk. The patients on a longitudinal 4. 4 years later, showing that they not only... started at baseline lower, but they aged less in the 4. 4 years of.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:53,900 ] Follow-up. So again, so What is the best diet? The best diet is something that's best for you and what you can tolerate, right? But There is. Remarkable data for some of these. Either.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:10:10,700 ] Lower meat-eating diets, those would be sometimes either the Mediterranean diets or the Mayan diet. But these all have lower meat. And more fish, and potentially the Even better than that is going to be potentially your. You're vegetarian.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:10:28,660 ] Diets or pescatarian diets, which are even more strict at getting rid of meat. All right. So again, thank you very much for joining us again here on Sunday Science. We love having you here. We were going to really accelerate our. aging of this and try to get as many more.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:10:50,860 ] studies. to show you How? you can impact your aging and your longevity. So thank you very much for joining me. Again, you can find us, Sunday Science, on Video podcast at gounpro. com. You can find us on Substack. You can find us on YouTube. and Spotify and Apple Podcasts. To find the video, it is, in general, has the blue artwork for the podcast.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:11:20,700 ] If the podcast has a purplish Maroon artwork, then this is going to be the audio only. Okay, so if you're trying to look for us, I'd say search either GoOnPro or BrentWLartsMD on YouTube. I think that's probably the easiest way, but also at gounpro. com. That's G-O-U-N-P-R-O dot com. Thanks for joining us and happy Sunday. Thank you.

Announcer Lucas

[ 00:11:58,530 ] This site and any information communicated within it are not intended as medical advice.

Announcer Lucas

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Announcer Lucas

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Announcer Lucas

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Announcer Lucas

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Chuan-Rui Zeng, Yang-Wei Cai, Mao-Xiong Wu, Ze-Gui Huang, Qing-Yuan Gao, Jing-Wei Gao, Guang-Hong Liao, Jing-Feng Wang, Hai-Feng Zhang, Yang-Xin Chen,  Biological aging across regular meat, low meat, pescatarian and vegetarian dietary patterns: A population-based cohort study, Clinical Nutrition, Volume 61,2026,106611.