Abstract
Aging increases the risk of cancer partly through alterations in the tissue microenvironment. Time-restricted feeding (TRF) is being proposed as an effective strategy to delay biological aging. In the present studies, we assessed the effect of long-term exposure to TRF on the emergence of the age-associated, neoplastic-prone tissue landscape. Animals were exposed to either ad libitum feeding (ALF) or TRF for 18 months and then transplanted with hepatocytes isolated from pre-neoplastic nodules. Both groups were continued ALF and the growth of transplanted cells was evaluated 3 months later. A significant decrease in frequency of larger size clusters of pre-neoplastic hepatocytes was seen in TRF-exposed group compared to controls. Furthermore, TRF modified several parameters related to both liver and systemic aging towards the persistence of a younger phenotype, including a decrease in liver cell senescence, diminished fat accumulation and up-regulation of SIRT1 in the liver, down-regulation of plasma IGF-1, decreased levels of plasma lipoproteins and up-regulation of hippocampal brain-derived growth factor (BDNF).These results indicate that TRF was able to delay the onset of the neoplastic-prone tissue landscape typical of aging. To our knowledge, this is the first investigation to describe a direct beneficial effect of TRF on early phases of carcinogenesis.