X-Message-Number: 7761 Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 03:56:12 -0800 (PST) From: Doug Skrecky <> Subject: 2'nd Update on Fly Experiments This is the 2'nd update on my fly experiments. There is now only one zero mortality milk bottle, that containing lycopene. The results are as follows: Day 21 Day 31 Supplement Alive/Dead/Mortality Alive/Dead/Mortality% Lipoic 4/5 55% 2/7 78% Biotin 3/5 62 1/7 88 CLA 3/4 57 0/7 100 Forskolin 9/1 10 8/2 20 (frisky) Glutamine 5/0 0 1/5 83 Lycopene 5/0 0 5/0 0 (frisky) NADH 6/1 14 6/1 14 Pregnenolone 8/0 0 6/2 25 (frisky) Pyroglutamic 5/3 38 4/4 50 RNA 4/3 43 0/7 100 Xanthophyll 5/3 38 6/2 25 The biggest change is in the glutamine bottle. All 5 flies died and another mysteriously appeared. A lot can happen in just 10 days in the life of a drosophilia melanogaster fly! In the xanthophyll group one fly that had been counted as dead (or non-moving) came back like lazarus in the day 31 count. Alas the flies in this group are all moving rather slowly and I fear for their continued existance. The same could be said of the flies in the NADH bottle, but here at least the mortality has not changed from day 21. The two bottles with 100% mortality, CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) and RNA are the only two bottles that the taurine larvicide failed to completely inhibit reproduction. I had to count only corpses here to estimate the number left alive of the original flies. The absence of a proper control group makes interpretation of these results rather problematic, as does the uncertain age of the flies at the start of the experiment (most were less than 26 days old then). Both of these deficiencies will be remedied with my second run, which I expect to start in a few weeks. This run will feature generally lower percentages of active ingrediants to avoid possible problems of toxicity. In order to quickly screen as large a number of supplements as possible I will be testing combinations mostly. In only three bottles do the flies still seem frisky or like to fly a lot. Mortality was less than 26% in all of these bottles: forskolin, lycopene and pregnenolone. The lycopene bottle has been proving to be very interesting since it is now the only zero mortality bottle. I will continue to monitor this experiment and will report on future developments. If you would like to do your own fly experiments formula 4-24 drosophilia medium (which includes a mold inhibitor) is available from: Carolina Biological Supply Company 2700 York Road Burlington, North Carolina USA 27215 I obtained my flies locally from the UBC fly lab. To obtain flies yourself call the biology department at your local university and ask for their fly lab. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7761