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Flies live longer if they can't smell their food

The whiff of yeast might help determine lifespan.

Eating less can lengthen an animal's life. But now it seems that — for flies at least — they don't have to actually cut down on the calories to benefit. Fruitflies can boost their lifespan just by not smelling their food.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on February 01, 2007
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When I was a boy my father told me not to eat sweets because they were bad for me. If he caught me eating sweets he would immediately drag me out to the paddock and force my face in a pile of manure. To this day I still can't stomach the thought of eating sweets so I guess his tactics worked.
While this isn't directly relevent to the story, it suggests that one way of getting kids to stop stuffing their face on things like sweets. I'm sure this would go a long way towards reducing the obesity epidemic in this country.

Posted by: Casey Price | February 2, 2007 01:13 PM

Dear Dr. Promislow

Thank you for the interesting responces to our article, yet I feel they are partially mistaken.

We measured the reproduction (fecundity) of OR83b flies and controls. Data is in fig 4a, there is no significant difference, when flies are fully fed. We did not present the data but the quality of eggs (percent that hatches, SL observation) seems to be unaffected. Even if flies would perform worser under stress (lay less eggs under stress for example) it is unlikely to be the cause of longevity, since during the longevity experiment, flies are not stressed in anyway.

It is possibe that the dfference is small, so that we can not detect it, but in this case it is unlikly to be the cause of 56% longevity extension.

Additionlly, the work from Tatars lab for at least in some systems, uncoupled reproduction from longevity.

With best regards,

Sergiy Libert

Posted by: Sergiy Libert | February 2, 2007 05:41 PM

Detecting fly diet and their smell with particular interest to their survival is a tough job, since there is no definite and authoritative method to do so. However, even without this report I strongly believe that the sense of smell could betray any creature, not only flies, given the levels of pesticides and other toxic substances in the environment.

Posted by: Caezar Angelito Estioko Arceo | February 13, 2007 05:00 PM

Did the research tell if the smell is the key, since there is no machine yet that can check if the odor is captured to activate enzymes in the stomach or to cause any effect? I hope the researchers will be considerate to report other factors that may have caused their longer lives, aside from their smell.

Posted by: Francesco Mosca | February 22, 2007 05:38 AM

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