Taurine, Less Methionine and Exercise Extend Fruit Fly Lives
Graded Preliminary — an experiment in fruit flies with 60 per sex and group; fly results say little about people, and researchers were not blinded to the groups.
Animal study. Findings may not carry over to people, which is why the grade is capped at Preliminary.
- Design
- Animal study
- Participants
- 60
- Duration
- —
- Funding
- National Institutes of Health; Duke Department of Pharmacology and Cancer…
In fruit flies, less methionine, added taurine and exercise together lengthened life more than any one of these alone.
Diets that lengthen life in animals often come at a cost, such as lower fertility or weaker performance. In fruit flies, researchers found a combination that seemed to avoid much of that trade-off. Cutting methionine, a building block of protein, adding taurine and adding exercise extended life more than any single step. The flies also stayed active.
Flies were assigned at random to four diets. One held a tenth of the usual methionine, another added taurine, a third did both. For exercise, a motor slowly turned the vials so the flies kept climbing upward. Exercise lengthened life in every group. Flies on the combined diet ate less but weighed about the same. A lactic acid bacterium grew in their guts. When flies cleared of gut bacteria got it back, part of the lifespan gain returned.
These results come from flies and cannot be applied directly to people. The authors say the flies may simply have liked the food less, which could explain why they ate less. The researchers also knew which group each fly belonged to during testing.
Conflict of Interest Disclosure: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Disclaimer: Research summaries are provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your health routine.