Associations between diet quality, epigenetic aging and epigenome in two population-based cohorts.

Minimal overlap exists among individuals in the highest quartile of adherence across ten diet quality scores in two cohorts.

• Why it matters: Understanding whether different healthy diets share common biological effects is crucial for developing effective dietary guidelines and interventions for health promotion.
• What they did: The study analyzed data from the Rhineland Study and EPIC-Potsdam cohorts, examining the overlap in diet adherence, associations with biological aging markers, and DNA methylation profiles across ten diet quality scores.
• The result: Adherence to healthy diets is linked to reduced epigenetic aging, with distinct methylation profiles converging on similar biological pathways, indicating common epigenetic mechanisms despite dietary differences.