A new study suggests that feeling hungry may help slow aging, and even the thought of not having enough food can extend life. According to previously conducted research, they have suggested that food restriction may lead to increased lifespan.
The research is published in the journal science Starvation has been shown to increase the lifespan of fruit flies. Researchers at the University of Michigan found that starving, depriving flies of amino acid molecules or stimulating brain regions associated with the motivation to eat, increased their lifespan.
Scott Pletcher, a co-author of the study, maintains: “We’re divorced [the life-extending effects of diet restriction] Of all the nutritional manipulations of diet that researchers have worked on for years, they say they don’t need it.”
Flies’ appetite was stimulated in several ways. One way was that the researchers changed the amount of branched-chain amino acid molecules (BCAAs) in a snack food and then let the flies freely feed on yeast or sugar food.
Those fed low-BCAA snacks consumed more yeast than sugar at the buffet compared to those fed high-BCAA snacks, the researchers revealed.
The researchers also explained that preference for yeast over sugar is an indicator of need-based hunger. They also found that when the flies were fed a low-BCAA diet for life, they lived significantly longer than those fed a high-BCAA diet.
By exposing them to red light, the scientists activated nerve cells associated with the flies’ hunger drive. Afterwards, the flies ate more food than those not exposed to the light. These flies also lived longer than flies used as controls.
Another co-author, Christy Weaver, said: “We think we’ve created a kind of insatiable appetite in the flies. And by doing that, the flies live longer.”
Because the scientists used this method only in flies, they believe that “there is every reason to expect that the mechanisms discovered may modulate the appetite drive in other species.”
They concluded that “the demonstration of the adequacy of hunger to extend lifespan reveals that motivational state alone may be a determinant driver of aging.”
