From vegconomist.com
Switching to a vegan diet for four weeks can change how certain genes behave, shifting activity in ways linked to immune function, metabolism, and cancer, according to a randomized clinical trial from researchers at the University of California San Diego and the University of Freiburg in Germany. The study was published in the journal MedComm.
The researchers analysed blood from 48 healthy adults who first spent a week on the same standardized diet, then switched to either a vegan or a meat-rich regime for one month. Both diets held calories constant, so any effects could not be explained by weight loss. Participants in the control group ate more than 150 grams of meat per day.
“Our biology is far more dynamic and responsive to everyday choices than we often assume”
The team tracked DNA methylation, a process that acts like a dimmer switch on genes, turning their activity up or down.
Jerome Mertens, associate professor of neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine and co-senior author, said, “Our genes are not our destiny. The remarkable finding isn’t simply that one diet outperformed another. It’s that the epigenome responded measurably in just four weeks, showing that our biology is far more dynamic and responsive to everyday choices than we often assume.”
A shift toward less inflammation
The vegan group showed a move toward a calmer immune system, with fewer of the white blood cells that drive inflammation and more of the type that helps keep immune responses in check. Those predictions, drawn from the methylation data, matched actual blood counts taken during the trial.
“That agreement told us we weren’t just seeing changes on a computer screen. We were detecting real and meaningful biological changes,” said Lukas Karbacher, a neuroscience graduate student at UC San Diego and first author.
Mixed signals on aging
The researchers also estimated participants’ biological age using so-called epigenetic clocks, tools that gauge aging from molecular markers rather than birthdays. Two clocks built to predict health outcomes suggested the vegan diet slowed biological aging over the month. A third, designed to track chronological age, pointed the other way.
The authors are cautious. The study was small, ran for only a month, and the changes did not hold up once the data were adjusted for statistical rigor, a limitation the paper states plainly.
“Our study adds to growing evidence that nutrition can shape biology at the molecular level. The next step is to understand whether these epigenetic changes persist over time and whether they translate into meaningful improvements in long-term health. That will require larger clinical studies, but these findings provide an important foundation,” said Max Storz of University of Freiburg Medical Center and co-senior author.
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