Research

Hormonal

Caloric restriction (14% reduction for 2 years) reduces circulating C3a levels in humans, independent of BMI changes, thereby suppressing complement-mediated inflammation.

Adopting a moderate caloric restriction (around 14% less than maintenance) for an extended period (e.g., 2 years) can significantly lower specific inflammatory markers like C3a in the blood. This reduction happens regardless of how much weight you lose, suggesting that the act of eating less directly modulates your immune system to reduce age-related inflammation.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
We found that CR significantly reduced plasma levels of some early classical pathway-related components... both C3a and C3adesArg... were significantly reduced by CR... C1s, C3a, C3adesArg, and C9 exhibited BMI-independent expression patterns
Manish Mishra et al. · Nature Aging · 2025

Why this rating

Based on a longitudinal human clinical trial (CALERIE) with proteomic analysis, supported by mouse models.

Source

Exoproteome of calorie-restricted humans identifies complement deactivation as an immunometabolic checkpoint reducing inflammaging

Manish Mishra et al. · Nature Aging · 2025

DOI 10.1038/s43587-026-01107-0

preprint · n=42Cited 1×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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