Selecting your food might make you (flies) age faster

LLight

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It has been recognized for nearly a century that diet modulates aging. Despite early experiments suggesting that reduced caloric intake augmented lifespan, accumulating evidence indicates that other characteristics of the diet may be equally or more influential in modulating aging. We demonstrate that behavior, metabolism, and lifespan in Drosophila are affected by whether flies are provided a choice of different nutrients or a single, complete medium, largely independent of the amount of nutrients that are consumed. Meal choice elicits a rapid metabolic reprogramming that indicates a potentiation of TCA cycle and amino acid metabolism, which requires serotonin 2A receptor. Knockdown of glutamate dehydrogenase, a key TCA pathway component, abrogates the effect of dietary choice on lifespan. Our results reveal a mechanism of aging that applies in natural conditions, including our own, in which organisms continuously perceive and evaluate nutrient availability to promote fitness and well-being.

The foods we eat can affect our lifespan, but it is also possible that thinking about food may have effects on our health. Choosing what to eat is one of the main ways we think about food, and most animals, including the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, choose their foods. The effects of these choices can affect health via a chemical in the brain called serotonin. This chemical interacts with proteins called serotonin 2A receptors in the brain, which then likely primes the body to process nutrients.

To understand how serotonin affected the lifespan and health of fruit flies, Lyu et al. compared flies that were offered a single food to those that could choose between several foods. The flies that had a choice of foods lived shorter lives and produced more serotonin, but these effects were reversed when Lyu et al. limited the amount of a protein called glutamate dehydrogenase, which helps cells process nutrients.

These results suggest that choosing what we eat can impact lifespan, ageing and health. Human and fly brains share many similarities, but human brain chemistry is more complex, as is our experience of food. This work demonstrates that food choices can affect lifespan. More research into this phenomenon may shed further light onto how our thoughts and decision-making impact our health.

We might be f*cked. Or, establish a good diet that is available all year long and do not deviate from it one bit?
 
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We humans have been choosing our food since the beginning of time and we live to be 100+. Not choosing our foods could shorten our lives. What if all we had available for years years was McDonald's cheeseburgers?
 

BodhiBlues

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Maybe the very act of "choosing" causes more energy to be used and that could be too much for the metabolism of a tiny being like a fly.

Serotonin is often talked about as being a negative for your health here, so perhaps the serotonin increase from the fly making decisions, is going to have a greater effect on a fly than a human as a human has much greater cognitive capacity than a fly.

Hope that makes sense, it's a bit "stream of thought"!
 
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Maybe the very act of "choosing" causes more energy to be used and that could be too much for the metabolism of a tiny being like a fly.

Serotonin is often talked about as being a negative for your health here, so perhaps the serotonin increase from the fly making decisions, is going to have a greater effect on a fly than a human as a human has much greater cognitive capacity than a fly.

Hope that makes sense, it's a bit "stream of thought"!

It sure did to me :)
 

gaze

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not stressing about food seems to be the important part.

it is a bit unnatural to scientically choose a diet to eat. most people throughout time have just ate what they craved and what was available, focusing more on other things in life. PUFA and poor quality foods complicate this however, forcing an individual to take more control and plan a specific diet, even though it may go against his natural cravings simply to avoid some perceived toxin in the food he's craving
 
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not stressing about food seems to be the important part.

it is a bit unnatural to scientically choose a diet to eat. most people throughout time have just ate what they craved and what was available, focusing more on other things in life. PUFA and poor quality foods complicate this however, forcing an individual to take more control and plan a specific diet, even though it may go against his natural cravings simply to avoid some perceived toxin in the food he's craving
So true! There is no doubt that a restaurant visit is stressful, trying to avoid all the nasties, and who ever really knows what "fell" into a pot of soup? Or what an irritated waiter or other restaurant employee does to your food if they don't like you, or their employer, or just to get a chuckle. I have friends that have some very disturbing stories that have traumatized me thinking about letting a stranger prepare my food, seratonin overload. The irony that eating out to give oneself a break from cooking could actually be detrimental to their health, for so many reasons.
 

BodhiBlues

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Yea, I think avoiding stress around food is very important. I try to eat mostly right and then try to enjoy a restaurant meal now and again without thinking too much about what oil it's cooked in and things like that. "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" is an important rule when it comes to health, as you can end up doing more damage through stressing about food than having a bit of vegetable oil occasionally.
 
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Yea, I think avoiding stress around food is very important. I try to eat mostly right and then try to enjoy a restaurant meal now and again without thinking too much about what oil it's cooked in and things like that. "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" is an important rule when it comes to health, as you can end up doing more damage through stressing about food than having a bit of vegetable oil occasionally.
I am not trying to be perfectly "Peaty", I just can't unsee see the visuals of my friend's horrible stories and watching too many of those restaurant "make-over" shows. The stuff they bring to light in the shows is so shocking.
 

BodhiBlues

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I am not trying to be perfectly "Peaty", I just can't unsee see the visuals of my friend's horrible stories and watching too many of those restaurant "make-over" shows. The stuff they bring to light in the shows is so shocking.
Like Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares? Every time I watch one of those I find myself shouting at the TV in frustration! :tearsofjoy:
 
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Like Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares? Every time I watch one of those I find myself shouting at the TV in frustration! :tearsofjoy:
I haven't followed that one, but in the old "Bar Rescues" the filth and what they uncover in the food and refrigerator, and the undercover cams on food handling were unbelievablably disgusting. I don't know why they would even bother to give those filthy restaurants a second chance. They didn't care what they were serving to their customers. The last 3 years of the show, John Tafford, hasn't been calling them out too much on stuff like he use too. I have wondered why?
 

BodhiBlues

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I haven't followed that one, but in the old "Bar Rescues" the filth and what they uncover in the food and refrigerator, and the undercover cams on food handling were unbelievablably disgusting. I don't know why they would even bother to give those filthy restaurants a second chance. They didn't care what they were serving to their customers. The last 3 years of the show, John Tafford, hasn't been calling them out too much on stuff like he use too. I have wondered why?
Sounds like those places should have been immediately shut down, not refurbished! I don't understand why anyone would get into the restaurant business if they don't care about the food that they are making, it isn't even particularly easy to make lots of money in it.
 

gaze

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this email exchange made me laugh:
Q: Hello Ray! What kind of foods do you like to eat out, which restaurants do you eat out at regularly
A: I haven’t eaten in a restaurant since 1984. Restaurants have always been notoriously unsafe places to eat, but in the age of food chemistry it has become impractical to try to identify trustworthy places.
longest I've gone without eating out is around a year, and when I told people that I would very strange looks. Ray is on another level.
 

Dr. B

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this email exchange made me laugh:

longest I've gone without eating out is around a year, and when I told people that I would very strange looks. Ray is on another level.
why mate? Ray's response was funny?

We humans have been choosing our food since the beginning of time and we live to be 100+. Not choosing our foods could shorten our lives. What if all we had available for years years was McDonald's cheeseburgers?
do you think Trump is right, i think i read an interview or quote where he said he gets fast food because it's safer and more reliable/trustworthy. now i dont think safer means in terms of quality of ingredients, lack of pufa, but it seemed more like those restaurants are very standardized, maybe have lots of quality control checks since they're super experienced and wealthy companies? whereas with a different type of restaurant or smaller store you'd have to be more wary and wonder how they're cooking it, what's going into it etc
 

CLASH

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"Unless otherwise mentioned, the choice diets contained 10% (w/v) sucrose or 10% (w/v) yeast on either side, and the fixed diets contained a mix of 10% (w/v) sucrose and 10% (w/v) yeast on each side."



Large choice selection; sucrose and/ or yeast. Prior to that it was cornmeal.
 
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Sounds like those places should have been immediately shut down, not refurbished! I don't understand why anyone would get into the restaurant business if they don't care about the food that they are making, it isn't even particularly easy to make lots of money in it.
I know I thought they should have been shut down too! I don't know how they could show their faces after the things that were exposed that they knowly let continue. Some owners seemed to not know stuff, but how could they not walk into the refrigerator and see the mushroom fungus growing up the walls? Or smell the dead rats, and don't get me started on the ice machines!


View: https://youtu.be/wuy8zZdXgTo
 
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why mate? Ray's response was funny?


do you think Trump is right, i think i read an interview or quote where he said he gets fast food because it's safer and more reliable/trustworthy. now i dont think safer means in terms of quality of ingredients, lack of pufa, but it seemed more like those restaurants are very standardized, maybe have lots of quality control checks since they're super experienced and wealthy companies? whereas with a different type of restaurant or smaller store you'd have to be more wary and wonder how they're cooking it, what's going into it etc
Well that is the catch 22 isn't it. The smaller places have better ingredients, but no quality control, and the fast food uses dog food quality food with more quality control. Which to choose?
 
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This 12 minute video highlights some of the worst they found on "Bar Rescue". SO TERRIBLE! Tell me how one should not be stressed out knowing this kind of stuff could me going on?
 

Dr. B

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yes. i'd never heard of someone not eating at a restaurant for nearly 40 years.
ah yeah. he still goes to grocery stores right. I wonder what he buys from there and if he ever eats something like pizza for example.

Well that is the catch 22 isn't it. The smaller places have better ingredients, but no quality control, and the fast food uses dog food quality food with more quality control. Which to choose?

this one farm said they offer hamburger ground beef meant for dogs. they claimed its the same quality as other beef but comes from older cows who have a more meaty taste that humans dont like, so its used for dog food.

i wasnt aware of this... how old are these "older cows" and how does this older cow meat taste compared to the regular beef we buy in stores?
 

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