starvation
dr. dolittle | October 20, 2015 Image of Drosophila from Wikipedia.
A new study published in the American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology describes how Drosophila melanogaster develop similar heart complications as humans when they become obese. Rather than feeding them a high fat diet to induce obesity, researchers selected flies that were resistant to starvation over 65 generations. The so-called starvation resistant Drosophila had dilated hearts that had an impaired ability to contract. Interestingly, the problem was caused by fat deposits literally shifting the position of…
dr. dolittle | June 24, 2014 Image of C. elegans from http://www.easternct.edu/~adams/C.eleganslanding.html
New research published in PLOS Genetics shows that starving C. elegans (Caenorhabditis elegans) during the late larval stage of development when the worms are undergoing tissue growth and formation halts cellular activity at previously unknown checkpoints in their development. These findings show that nutrition is an important cue to signal whether or not the worms should continue on to the next stage of development. Interestingly, the two-week starvation period actually doubled the lifespan of the worms as they…