For several years, medical researchers, doctors and dieticians have known that a low carbohydrate diet and plentiful fat can prevent a range of lifestyle and age-related diseases and thus promote healthy aging. But researchers from around the world have not been able to explain why this is the case. They have just been reasonably certain that the energy metabolism and its chemical intermediates (metabolites) play a central role.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Aarhus University has now found more than just an important piece of the puzzle – a piece that suggests that the puzzle that is our metabolism looks somewhat different than science has so far believed. This is also the reason why the research group’s article has made the front cover of the journal Cell Chemical Biology.

Researchers from Aarhus University have discovered a metabolite that reveals how the body's fat-metabolism provides protection against the harmful effects of sugar. This may explain be the chemical link between a low carbohydrate diet and healthy aging.