Nature
Red Wine Consuming Honeybees Eat Less and Survive Long
Brooke Miller
First Posted: Sep 26, 2012 06:15 AM EDT
Several health benefits were linked to consumption of red wine, right from dropping blood pressure in men and protecting against obesity and diabetes. Now, the human race has competition.
The team of scientists from the Arizona State University, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and Harvard Medical School, state that bees consume less food on having resveratrol a compound that is found in red wine.
Prior to this it was known that resveratrol extends the lifespan of the diverse organism ranging from unicellular yeast to fruit flies and mice.
Since bees are social animals like humans, the researchers decided to test the effects of the chemical on the honey bee.
The scientists tested the lifespan, learning ability, and food perception in honey bees based on the series of experiments published in the journal Aging. On analyzing the experiments they confirmed that the compound not just extends the lifespan of the best by 33 to 38 percent but also changes the decisions that bees make about food by triggering a "moderation effect" when they eat.
"For the first time, we conducted several tests on the effects of resveratrol by using the honey bee as a model," said Brenda Rascon, an ASU alumnus and doctoral student with Gro Amdam, an associate professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. "We were able to confirm that under normal living conditions, resveratrol lengthened lifespan in honey bees."
Resveratrol being an antioxidant, the researchers are now trying to figure out whether it would be capable of diminishing the damaging effects of 'free radicals'. Free radicals are highly responsible for damaging cells and have an effect on how humans age.
Researchers asked the next question: What's happening that is causing them to live longer?
Because what we eat is such an important contributor to our physical health, we looked at the bees' sensitivity to sugar and their willingness to consume it," said Amdam. "Bees typically gorge on sugar and while it's the best thing for them, we know that eating too much is not necessarily a good thing."
Amdam, Rascon, and their research team noticed that bees given the compound were less sensitive to sugar. They then used different sugar solutions, some very diluted and some with stronger concentrations. They found that bees receiving resveratrol were not as interested in eating the sugar solutions unless the sugar was highly concentrated. The bees basically changed their perception about food. They measured how much food the bees would consume if given the opportunity to eat as much sugar water as they possibly could.
"Surprisingly, the bees that received the drug decreased their food intake," said Rascon. "The bees were allowed to eat as much as they pleased and were certainly not starving -- they simply would not gorge on the food that we know they like. It's possible resveratrol may be working by some mechanism that is related to caloric restriction -- a dietary regimen long known to extend lifespan in diverse organisms."
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NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone
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First Posted: Sep 26, 2012 06:15 AM EDT
Several health benefits were linked to consumption of red wine, right from dropping blood pressure in men and protecting against obesity and diabetes. Now, the human race has competition.
The team of scientists from the Arizona State University, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and Harvard Medical School, state that bees consume less food on having resveratrol a compound that is found in red wine.
Prior to this it was known that resveratrol extends the lifespan of the diverse organism ranging from unicellular yeast to fruit flies and mice.
Since bees are social animals like humans, the researchers decided to test the effects of the chemical on the honey bee.
The scientists tested the lifespan, learning ability, and food perception in honey bees based on the series of experiments published in the journal Aging. On analyzing the experiments they confirmed that the compound not just extends the lifespan of the best by 33 to 38 percent but also changes the decisions that bees make about food by triggering a "moderation effect" when they eat.
"For the first time, we conducted several tests on the effects of resveratrol by using the honey bee as a model," said Brenda Rascon, an ASU alumnus and doctoral student with Gro Amdam, an associate professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. "We were able to confirm that under normal living conditions, resveratrol lengthened lifespan in honey bees."
Resveratrol being an antioxidant, the researchers are now trying to figure out whether it would be capable of diminishing the damaging effects of 'free radicals'. Free radicals are highly responsible for damaging cells and have an effect on how humans age.
Researchers asked the next question: What's happening that is causing them to live longer?
Because what we eat is such an important contributor to our physical health, we looked at the bees' sensitivity to sugar and their willingness to consume it," said Amdam. "Bees typically gorge on sugar and while it's the best thing for them, we know that eating too much is not necessarily a good thing."
Amdam, Rascon, and their research team noticed that bees given the compound were less sensitive to sugar. They then used different sugar solutions, some very diluted and some with stronger concentrations. They found that bees receiving resveratrol were not as interested in eating the sugar solutions unless the sugar was highly concentrated. The bees basically changed their perception about food. They measured how much food the bees would consume if given the opportunity to eat as much sugar water as they possibly could.
"Surprisingly, the bees that received the drug decreased their food intake," said Rascon. "The bees were allowed to eat as much as they pleased and were certainly not starving -- they simply would not gorge on the food that we know they like. It's possible resveratrol may be working by some mechanism that is related to caloric restriction -- a dietary regimen long known to extend lifespan in diverse organisms."
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone