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  #1   ^
Old Sat, Mar-21-20, 02:15
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
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Default Sugar leads to early death in fruit flies, but not due to obesity

Sugar leads to early death in fruit flies, but not due to obesity

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196...th-fruit-flies/

Quote:
Researchers discovered that the shortened survival of fruit flies fed a sugar-rich diet is not the result of their diabetic-like metabolic issues

Sugar-rich diets have a negative impact on health independent of obesity reports a new study led by the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences and Institute of Clinical Sciences, Imperial College London.

Researchers discovered that the shortened survival of fruit flies fed a sugar-rich diet is not the result of their diabetic-like metabolic issues.

The findings, published online in the journal Cell Metabolism on 19 March, instead suggest that early death from excess sugar is related to the build-up of a natural waste product, uric acid.

We all know that consuming too much sugar is unhealthy. It increases our risk of developing metabolic disorders, such as obesity and diabetes, and can shorten our life expectancy by several years. While this reduction in lifespan is widely believed to be caused by metabolic defects, this new study in fruit flies reveals that this may not be the case.

“Just like humans, flies fed a high-sugar diet show many hallmarks of metabolic disease – for instance, they become fat and insulin resistant”, says Dr Helena Cochemé, the principal investigator of the study. “Obesity and diabetes are known to increase mortality in humans, and so people always assumed that this was how excess sugar is damaging for survival in flies”.

However, like salt, sugar also causes dehydration. In fact, thirst is an early symptom of high blood sugar and diabetes. Dr Cochemé continues: “Water is vital for our health, yet its importance is often overlooked in metabolic studies. Therefore, we were surprised that flies fed a high-sugar diet did not show a reduced lifespan, simply by providing them with an extra source of water to drink. Unexpectedly, we found that these flies still exhibited the typical metabolic defects associated with high dietary sugar”.

Based on this water effect, the team decided to focus on the fly renal system. They showed that excess dietary sugar caused the flies to accumulate a molecule called uric acid. Uric acid is an end-product from the breakdown of purines, which are important building blocks in our DNA. But uric acid is also prone to crystallise, giving rise to kidney stones in the fly. Researchers could prevent these stones, either by diluting their formation with drinking water or by blocking the production of uric acid with a drug. In turn, this protected against the shortened survival associated with a sugar-rich diet.

So, does this mean we can eat all the sugary treats we want, as long as we drink plenty of tea? “Unfortunately not,” says Dr Cochemé, “the sugar-fed flies may live longer when we give them access to water, but they are still unhealthy. And in humans, for instance, obesity increases the risk of heart disease. But our study suggests that disruption of the purine pathway is the limiting factor for survival in high-sugar-fed flies. This means that early death by sugar is not necessarily a direct consequence of obesity itself”.

To understand the impact of dietary sugars on human health, collaborators from Kiel University in Germany explored the influence of diet in healthy volunteers. “Strikingly, just like flies, we found that dietary sugar intake in humans was associated with worse kidney function and higher purine levels in the blood”, says Prof. Christoph Kaleta, co-author of the study.

Accumulation of uric acid is a known direct cause of kidney stones in humans, as well as gout, a form of inflammatory arthritis. Uric acid levels also tend to increase with age, and can predict the onset of metabolic diseases such as diabetes. “It will be very interesting to explore how our results from the fly translate to humans, and whether the purine pathway also contributes to regulating human survival”, concludes Dr Cochemé. “There is substantial evidence that what we eat influences our life expectancy and our risk for age-related diseases. By focusing on the purine pathway, our group hopes to find new therapeutic targets and strategies that promote healthy ageing”.

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  #2   ^
Old Sat, Mar-21-20, 08:16
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teaser teaser is offline
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Quote:
Flies on the 20%S diet without additional water exhibited a significantly increased number of sips, which was abolished when flies were pre-treated with the 20%S diet supplemented with water



20 percent water solution... suppose I had an 85 percent sugar diet. Call it a 2000 calorie diet for easy math--so, 1700 calories, 425 grams of sugar per day. At a 5 percent sugar solution--I'd have 19 times that much water. At a 20 percent solution--4 times that much water. A massive difference in water intake to get those calories in. 1.7 versus 8 liters. Not sure why I put it in human calorie terms, only matters to Jeff Goldblum. Even if sugar didn't increase need for water as such, the animals might be forced to choose between underconsuming water and overconsuming sugar.

The math doesn't really work because we're dealing with weight/volume, but should be close enough.

Coca Cola has 11 grams sugar per hundred grams.
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  #3   ^
Old Sat, Mar-21-20, 08:17
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teaser teaser is offline
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This is a very specific situation where dehydration results, in humans probably more damage is done by sugar through promoting obesity.
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  #4   ^
Old Sat, Mar-21-20, 10:08
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Merpig Merpig is offline
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Hmm, I can't imagine how you would even measure "obesity" in a fruit fly.
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  #5   ^
Old Sat, Mar-21-20, 10:25
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GRB5111 GRB5111 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by teaser
This is a very specific situation where dehydration results, in humans probably more damage is done by sugar through promoting obesity.

Good point, and additionally, an abundance of blood sugar as IR establishes itself means inflammatory impact to eyes and other organs, as I believe sugar is a hyper oxidizer that causes damage unless moved out of the blood to fat and other cells in a relatively short period of time. An abundance of sugar is a killer over time.
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  #6   ^
Old Sat, Mar-21-20, 12:21
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deirdra deirdra is offline
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The flies probably die before they can become obese. If the dehydration doesn't kill them, the inability to lift off and fly will.
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  #7   ^
Old Sat, Mar-21-20, 17:10
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bkloots bkloots is offline
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Imagining the difficulties of Fat Fruit Flies provides a moment of humor in this otherwise dull day of self-isolation. Thank you everyone.

Science historians: when did fruit flies become the experimental model for human conditions? I know they reproduce dependably. But how do their other metabolic functions inform what happens in human beings??
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  #8   ^
Old Sat, Mar-21-20, 17:58
Zei Zei is offline
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I guess lots of living non-plant things must have insulin or similar metabolic stuff to humans if they're being compared with us? Since, despite claims of sports drink manufacturers who'd like to sell us their hydration products, any normal human not lost in the desert without water will drink sufficiently when prompted by thirst to avoid serious dehydration, I doubt the hydration-related condition discovered in these experimental critters will be occurring in humans. Thus high fructose intake with its related uric acid production will take its human health toll in other ways.
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  #9   ^
Old Tue, Mar-24-20, 04:51
roweatery roweatery is offline
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The article do have a point.
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  #10   ^
Old Tue, Mar-24-20, 07:30
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How do they determine if a fruit fly is obese? Just getting one to land on a scale and stay still must be a real challenge. Maybe they kill some and then measure them.
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  #11   ^
Old Tue, Mar-24-20, 09:20
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GRB5111 GRB5111 is offline
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FFATC - Fruit Fly Air Traffic Control guiding them on to the scale for weighing. A little known group sacrificing their potential for landing better jobs in the sake of science . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Since fruit flies were initially used to study and understand genetics and heredity due to their short life spans and rapid genetic changes, they became the model early on. How they translate to human metabolic and dietary understanding is a stretch, but no one cries over the poor lowly fruit fly being an experimental object. I'm now having a brief personal moment of silence in memory of the many who have sacrificed for humans. A noble role.
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  #12   ^
Old Tue, Mar-24-20, 12:35
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JEY100 JEY100 is online now
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Though Obesity studies in fruit flies are step up from the Longevity studies using the C. Elegans worms, which have a lifespan of 20 days.
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  #13   ^
Old Tue, Mar-24-20, 12:51
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thud123 thud123 is offline
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As far as laughs on this thread I think the best subtle humor award (or most obscure) goes to teaser - this cracked me up as I too have seen "modern" version of The Fly...

Quote:
Originally Posted by teaser
Not sure why I put it in human calorie terms, only matters to Jeff Goldblum.
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  #14   ^
Old Tue, Mar-24-20, 13:55
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deirdra deirdra is offline
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Jeff Goldblum may need more calories than the average human since he is nearly 6'4".
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  #15   ^
Old Tue, Mar-24-20, 16:17
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WereBear WereBear is offline
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Here you go:

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