Drosophomores
Or perennial juniors, maybe. Testing on the ever-popular fruit fly has produced this youthful-sounding premise:
Researchers from the newly founded Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne have studied whether health benefit stem from a reduction in specific nutrients or calorie intake in general by manipulating the diet of female fruit flies. The fruit flies were fed a diet of yeast, sugar and water, but with differing amounts of key nutrients, such as vitamins, lipids and amino acids. The scientists were able to show that longevity and fertility are affected by a combination of the type and amount of amino acids; whilst varying the amount of the other nutrients had little or no effect. Furthermore, the researchers found out in previous studies that levels of a particular amino acid — methionine — were crucial to increasing lifespan without decreasing fertility. By carefully manipulating the balance of amino acids, both lifespan and fertility were maximised. For the first time, this indicates that it is possible to extend lifespan without wholesale dietary restriction and without lowering reproductive capacity.
Citation:
Richard C. Grandison, Matthew D. W. Piper & Linda Partridge
Amino-acid imbalance explains extension of lifespan by dietary restriction in Drosophila
Nature, December 3, 2009, doi:10.1038/nature08619
It might be better to think of this, though, as just a start:
I suspect that continuing research will show that this is still too simple, that manipulating methionine levels is a blunt instrument, and that the issue is balance among the various nutrients rather than the amounts. My expectations — perhaps bias — comes from experience as a grower. It is often the case that better growth and more healthful produce comes from getting the nutrient balances in tune with one another in a context of nutrient availability rather than from broad manipulation of total nutrients or even targeted provision of selected nutrients.
Half the battle, I presume, will be finding out exactly where those balances are.
Still, this seems encouraging, given the similarities, in structure if not in scale, between Drosophila’s genome and ours.
McGehee »
8 December 2009 · 2:03 pm
“Ageing”..?
Is there some little-known usage of the word “aging” I don’t know about? Does it properly rhyme with “bada-bing” and constitute a variant of “agog”?
CGHill »
8 December 2009 · 2:08 pm
I suspect this is a Eurovariation, given the presence elsewhere of “maximised.”
back40 »
8 December 2009 · 5:21 pm
It’s a Britishism, apparently.
Lisa Paul »
8 December 2009 · 6:27 pm
All I know is those pesky fruit flies are all over any access to our fermenting wine, the little bastards. And since they carry a bacteria that can taint the must, fly proofing is the dirty little secret of the winemaking biz — in that extermination ability can sometimes trump winemaking skills for a successful outcome.
fillyjonk »
8 December 2009 · 7:41 pm
Sometimes “ageing” is also used to describe “estimating the age of something” as opposed to “aging,” how something gets older. But apparently not in this case here, so I vote Britishism.
I wonder, how long before we all get spammed by people offering to sell us methionine?
Jeffro »
8 December 2009 · 10:10 pm
Somehow, I suspect pizza, beer and long lives will be mutually exclusive.