CR Mechanisms

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The full text of this is available free at PubMed:

Dietary restriction in Drosophila: delayed aging or experimental

artefact?

Piper MD, Partridge L.

University College London Centre for Research on Ageing, Department

of Biology, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

Lifespan can be extended by reduction of dietary intake. This

practice is referred to as dietary restriction (DR), and extension

of lifespan by DR is evolutionarily conserved in taxonomically

diverse organisms including yeast, invertebrates, and mammals.

Although these two often-stated facts carry the implication that the

mechanisms of DR are also evolutionarily conserved, extension of

lifespan could be a case of evolutionary convergence, with different

underlying mechanisms in different taxa. Furthermore, extension of

lifespan by different methods of DR in the same organism may operate

through different mechanisms. These topics remain unresolved because

of the very fact that the mechanisms of DR are unknown. Given these

uncertainties, it is essential that work on the mechanisms of DR is

not clouded by imprecise descriptions of methods or by technical

problems. Here we review the recent literature on DR in Drosophila

to point out some methodological issues that can obscure mechanistic

interpretations. We also indicate some experiments that could be

performed to determine if DR in Drosophila operates through similar

mechanisms to the process in rodents.

PMID: 17465680

Rodney.