X-Message-Number: 8368
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 07:23:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Doug Skrecky <>
Subject: 12'th update on fly longevity experiments
This is the twelfth update on my fly experiments. The most recent
results are as follows:
Third Run Survival
Supplement DAY 17 DAY 36 DAY 48
Control 64% 14% 0%
Activated charcoal 87 31 15
Amchoor 73 42 8
Angelica 56 18 0
Anise 45 43 19
Bay 69 0 0
Beet 62 0 0
Betaine HCL 82 27 0
Carrot 40 0 0
Celery seed 90 0 0
Citrus bioflavonoids 65 5 0
Comfrey 88 0 0
Dill seed 82 0 0
Green pea 76 8 0
Hydroxycitric acid 47 0 0
Kelp 64 7 12
Malt 83 34 18
Melatonin 54 31 6
Melatonin 2X 70 29 6
Melatonin 4X 65 6 0
Nicotinamide 6X 28 0 0
Paprika 69 43 29
Para-aminobenzoic acid 82 17 11
Purple yam 92 58 8
Rosehip 88 6 6
Sage 66 19 7
Sage 2X 67 0 0
Sage 4X 94 0 0
Silica 88 7 0
Spinach 40 20 0
Tumerin 84 0 0
Currently the highest survival is in the bottle containing
paprika(29), followed by anise(19), malt(18), and activated charcoal(15).
Purple yam has fallen by the wayside with a dramatic fall in survival
from 58% to just 8%. The very low initial mortality from the day 17
census, I interpret as indicating that purple yam is probably offering
good protection against pathogens derived originally from the infected
breeding bottles used to start run #3. However the rapid subsequent fall
off in survival indicates that purple yam probably does not slow fly
aging. The situation is quite different for paprika, which did not
initially offer any advantage, yet the fall off in survival after the
first census has been quite modest from 69%, to 43%, to the current 29%.
I interpret this as a genuine anti-aging effect.
Low dose sage, with a 7% survival has again outlasted the control
bottle, as it did in the second run, when it bested 23 other bottles to
offer the best survival. I suspect that this is due to the bactericidal
action of this spice. The rapid fall off in survival from higher doses of
sage may be due to thujone poisoning. I do not expect sage offers much if
any antiaging action.
The increase from 7 to 12% survival in the kelp bottle is anomalous.
This is due to the appearance of 2 extra small flies in this bottle. It
is just possible that these may be offspring that somehow survived the
taurine larvicide I mix with the fly medium. The "original" 14 flies are
all dead.
In order to accelerate my experiments I had decided to "age" the flies
I use in my longevity experiments. For the 4'th run I originally
transferred a large number of flies from the breeding bottles to
"holding" bottles containing taurine larvicide. After these reached
"middle age" after a month I had planned to use them to start the next
run. Unfortunately this is not going to happen. To prevent early
mortality I decided to add either purple yam or high dose sage to the
holding bottles. I flipped a coin and unfortunately chose sage. The
slaughter was immense! The flies in the holding bottles rapidly followed
their brothers in the sage 4X bottle from run #3 to early graves. I was
struck once again by how inconvenient it is that medium 4-24 does not
incorporate an effective bactericide.
After my original plan for run #4 was blown up, I decided to
concentrate on investgating bactericides for this run. The few flies I
could get from the old diseased breeding bottles I have used to initiate
run #4 as follows:
Run #4
Control
bactine 1%
bactine 4X 4%
garlic 500 mg/100 ml
garlic 4X 2000 mg/100 ml
KCL 500
KCL 4X 2000
mint listerine 25%
mint listerine 4X 100%
paprika 500
paprika 4X 2000
pectin 2000
plax 25%
plax 4X 100%
purple yam 500
purple yam 4X 2000
salt 500
salt 4X 2000
sterisol 25%
sterisol 4X 100%
viadent 25%
viadent 4X 100%
water reduced 50%
The bactericial liquids bactine, mint listerine, plax, sterisol and
viadent were used to replace part or all of the water used in the medium.
I also reduced the amount of water used by 50% in one bottle to test
whether depriving bacteria of some of their water would be helpful. To my
knowledge this is the first longevity test of water restriction in any
animal species to date. I included pectin because by accident I found
that flies prefer zero calorie non-sweetened pectin solutions over wine
or any other liquid. I have no idea why flies like pectin or even how
they know they like it. I presume pectin must have a smell that flies can
detect, but which humans can not.
The only item being tested which does not appear to offer any
bactericial effects is paprika. However the results from run #3 were so
intriguing that I could not wait till later to test paprika again. Run #4
would have been larger (only 23 bottles this time), but I ran out of
flies from the old breeding bottles. Based on the results from run #4 I
hope to eliminate or at least greatly reduce the confounding effects of
pathogens on fly longevity.
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