The peanut panacea: Eating just a handful of the snack every day could slow down ageing

Forget all those costly anti-ageing creams or wrinkle-busting Botox jabs.

The real secret to staying young could be simply eating a handful of peanuts every day.

Scientists have discovered it slows down cellular ageing – the rate at which all cells in the human body get old. 

Rapid cellular ageing is linked to heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes.

But snacking daily on peanuts could slow the process, according to findings published in the journal Antioxidants. 

A team of experts from the University of Barcelona decided to investigate after other studies found eating foods rich in antioxidants may reduce the rate at which cells age.

Antioxidants, found in plant foods, fight off the effects of harmful molecules in the body called free radicals – which can damage healthy cells.

The researchers got 58 young, healthy volunteers to either snack on 25g of peanuts every day for six months, or a daily serving of peanut butter.

The recruits regularly provided saliva samples for scientists to check their DNA for telomere length – protective caps at the ends of chromosomes.

Telomeres gradually shorten as the body ages, but slowing down the rate that they do could help us live longer. 

The researchers found that, over the six-month period, the rate at which telomere length in the peanut group shortened was almost half that seen in the peanut butter group.

The findings in the report said: ‘Telomere shortening has been linked to age-related diseases like heart disease, diabetes and cancer. 

‘But peanut consumption may help to mitigate these risks.’

However, they added it’s best sticking to unsalted peanuts, to avoid driving up blood pressure.

Britons consume almost 180,000 tonnes of peanuts every year and demand is slowly increasing.