Fast Foods Speed Aging

Fast foods, it turns out, speed up more than a meal: they may also shorten our lives. EurekaAlert reports that researchers at the Department of Medicine, Infection and Immunity at the Harvard School of
Dental Medicine examined the effects of phosphates, which are added to fast food as preservatives and flavor enhancers, on three groups of mice.
The first group of mice was missing a gene (klotho), which when absent,
causes mice to have toxic levels of phosphate in their bodies. These
mice lived 8 to 15 weeks. The second group of mice was missing the
klotho gene and a second gene (NaPi2a), which when absent at the same
time, substantially lowered the amount of phosphate in their bodies.
These mice lived to 20 weeks. The third group of mice was like the
second group (missing both the klotho and NaPi2a genes), except they
were fed a high-phosphate diet. All of these mice died by 15 weeks, like
those in the first group. What does it mean? The researchers believe that phosphates have toxic
effects in mice, and may have a similar effect in other mammals, like themselves.

Read more in EurekaAlert.

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