20'th update on fly longevity experiments

Doug Skrecky (oberon@vcn.bc.ca)
Wed, 8 Apr 1998 14:35:15 -0700 (PDT)

This is the 20'th update on my fly longevity experiments. I made two
mistakes with this run, one minor and one major. The minor one is that I
apparently forgot to include the non-toxic taurine larvicide in the onion
4X/chitosan 4X, and onion 4X/paprika combination bottles. The breeding
that occurred in these bottles, rendered any census impossible, and so
these bottles had to be discarded.
The major mistake was adding still boiling water (instead of boilED)
to all of the supplement bottles, without first testing to see if this
was beneficial. Fortunately I included a normal control using cool water,
in addition to a hot control using boiling water, for all of the three
breeding bottle fly sources. Thus I am able to learn from my mistake.
Using boiling water reduced fly longevity by two mechanisms. One was
purely physical. This involved the formation of tight cracks between the
fly food and the inside of the bottles. In some supplement bottles these
were narrow enough to trap and drown numerous flies in the moist fly
food. The onion 4X bottle was a great example of this, with all of its
flies being drowned by the day 34 census. Fortunately these cracks tended
to widen with time as the fly food slowly dried out, so that after the
day 34 census, few flies met their end in this way.
The other mechanism reducing longevity can be only speculated about.
After all the flies in the three hot control bottles had died, a few
still lived on in the corresponding cool water control bottles. This
appears to constitute a genuine aging acceleration phenomina. I presume
this is due to the boiling water destroying some of the vitamins in the
fly food and inducing subclinical nutrient deficiencies, which manifest
themselves late in life.
On a positive note two observations stand out in this run. First
hawthorn appears to increase life span. Secondly the factors responsible
for the longer life span associated with cinnamon or sage
supplementation, appear to be lipid soluable, since addition of the fat
binding fiber chitosan eliminates this effect.
I am trying something different for my eighth run. All flies used here
have been "pre-aged" in holding bottles containing taurine larvicide for
29 days prior to use. About 75% of the flies in these bottles had already
died before the eighth run had even been begun. I had anticipated some
mortality, and so had used 5 holding bottles. However even with the
increased number of fly sources, I found that I did not have enough flies
to commence a full sized run. I did the best I could here, with the flies
available. Since these aged flies were virtually unable to fly I upended
each holding bottle, and dumped the flies into one bottle prior to use.
The advantage here is that the flies from all five holding bottles are
homogenized so that five control bottles are not needed to account for
variations in average fly age from different bottles.
The main advantage of using pre-aged flies is that the eighth run
will be completed quick enough, that I doubt that rotting of the fly food
would be much of a factor limiting life spans. It is possible that larger
differences in longevity might manifest themselves with this change in
procedures.
I would like to thank Robert Ettinger and Andy Zawacki for donating
the acetyl-carnosine for the eighth run. I am told that this is from
Russian sources.

Seventh Run PERCENTAGE SURVIVAL ON DAY
BB# Supplement 10 17 27 34 41 46 55 64 71 74 77 83 85 88
_____________________________________________________________________
1 cntl 1 89 69 63 46 37 29 23 11 6 6 3 0 - -
1 hot cntl 1 94 90 70 62 50 28 16 2 0 - - - - -
1 creatine 97 85 68 62 41 32 15 3 0 - - - - -
1 creatine 4X 89 67 48 26 15 11 7 0 - - - - - -
1 fennel 96 91 74 57 39 30 13 4 0 - - - - -
1 fennel 4X 79 79 63 42 33 17 0 - - - - - - -
1 gaba 88 75 75 44 31 13 0 - - - - - - -
1 gaba 4X 95 90 65 40 30 20 0 - - - - - - -
1 garam masala 93 79 57 36 36 29 21 7 0 - - - - -
1 garam masala 4X 100 87 67 27 13 13 13 0 - - - - - -
1 guggulipid 90 80 35 15 5 5 0 - - - - - - -
1 guggulipid 4X 100 81 63 44 31 19 19 0 - - - - - -
1 hawthorn 95 89 68 68 58 47 26 16 5 0 - - - -
1 hawthorn 4X 100100 88 88 75 50 38 25 6 6 0 - - -
1 lemon peel 100 82 59 47 41 29 18 0 - - - - - -
1 lemon peel 4X 83 67 42 33 21 17 4 0 - - - - - -
1 l-lysine 89 67 61 33 22 17 11 6 0 - - - - -
1 l-lysine 4X 60 50 30 15 15 5 5 5 5 5 0 - - -
1 l-ornithine 64 71 64 36 21 14 14 14 7 0 - - - -
1 l-ornithine 4X 56 56 19 19 13 13 13 0 - - - - - -
2 cntl 2 94 84 77 45 32 16 10 10 6 6 0 - - -
2 hot cntl 2 69 59 48 38 34 7 3 3 3 0 - - - -
2 onion 4X 87 60 20 0 - - - - - - - - - -
2 on 4X/chitosan 4X 96 85 48 44 41 33 19 15 4 4 4 0 - -
2 on 4X/chitosan 8X (breeding! - discarded)
2 on 4X/cr picolinate 4X 84 68 24 16 8 4 0 - - - - - - -
2 on 4X/cr picolinate 8X 77 41 14 9 5 5 5 0 - - - - - -
2 on 4X/cinnamon 96 85 73 62 46 31 23 15 15 12 12 4 4 4
2 on 4X/cinnamon/chit 4X 100 38 23 8 8 11 11 0 - - - - - -
2 on 4X/paprika (breeding! - discarded)
2 on 4X/paprika/chit 4X 79 42 37 26 21 16 11 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
2 on 4X/sage 4X 95 77 59 45 41 45 23 18 14 9 9 0 - -
2 on 4X/sage 4X/chit 4X 41 29 18 12 12 6 6 0 - - - - - -

3 cntl 3 96 92 80 64 60 40 20 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
3 hot cntl 3 83 58 48 40 25 18 8 8 0 - - - - -
3 shark cartilage 95 63 43 30 18 10 8 5 3 0 - - - -
3 shark cartilage 4X 85 60 18 5 0 - - - - - - - - -
3 silymarin 83 51 20 11 6 0 - - - - - - - -
3 silymarin 4X 86 52 29 24 14 14 0 - - - - - - -
3 thiodiproprionic acid 96 78 48 39 22 17 17 9 4 0 - - - -
3 thiodiproprionic 4X 83 61 44 33 17 17 6 6 0 - - - - -
3 trimethylglycine 77 55 27 18 14 9 5 0 - - - - - -
3 trimethylglycine 4X 82 59 27 5 0 - - - - - - - - -
3 l-tyrosine 77 46 23 15 15 8 0 - - - - - - -
3 l-tyrosine 4X 65 59 47 41 24 24 24 6 0 - - - - -

Eighth Run
cntl 1
cntl 2
acetyl-carnosine: 1/32 tsp
acetyl-carnosine 4X: 1/8 tsp
aged garlic: 75 mg (Kyolic formula 100)
aged garlic: 300 mg
almond: 1/4 tsp
cardamon: 1/16 tsp
cardamon 4X: 1/4 tsp
chili: 1/16 tsp
chili 4X: 1/4 tsp
coriander: 1/16 tsp
coriander 4X: 1/4 tsp
echinacea: 31 mg augustifolia & 31 mg purpurea
echinacea 4X: 125 mg augustifolia & 125 mg purpurea
tomato: 1/16 tsp
tomato 4X: 1/4 tsp
water reduced: used 3 instead of 6 tablespoons of water,
with 20 mg Carolina Biological 4-24 fly food

Note: 1 gm taurine added to all bottles to eliminate breeding
Glass milk bottles are used to contain flies.
Entire experiment is located on a card table near a window.
Fly life spans tend to be longer in runs during the winter,
due to the lower temperatures.

Also note: (to my knowledge)
Every major university in North America has a fly lab.
None are currently doing fly longevity experiments.