Interesting relationship between diet, eye health and life expectancy

Overview: A new study of Drosophila reveals a link between circadian rhythm, diet, longevity, and eye health. Unexpectedly, researchers have discovered a process of fly-eye that appears to be driving the aging process.

sauce: Back Institute

For the first time, researchers at the Back Institute have demonstrated a link between Drosophila diet, circadian rhythm, eye health, and longevity.

Published in the June 7, 2022 issue of Nature CommunicationsThey also unexpectedly discovered that the fly-eye process actually drives the aging process.

Previous studies have shown in humans that there is a link between eye damage and poor health.

“Our study claims that it’s more than a correlation. Eye dysfunction can actually cause problems in other tissues,” the lab said for years. Dr. Pankajikapahi, a senior author and professor of the Back Institute, who has demonstrated fasting and calorie restriction, said. It can improve many functions of the body.

“We now show that fasting not only improves vision, but that the eyes actually play a role in lifespan.”

“At least the discovery that the fruit fly’s eyes themselves can directly regulate lifespan was a surprise to us,” said Dr. Brian Hodge, lead author of postdoctoral research in Kapahi’s lab.

According to Hodge, the explanation for this relationship is in the circadian clock. It is the intracellular molecular mechanism of all living organisms and is evolving to adapt to daily stresses such as rising light and temperature and changes in light and temperature caused by settings. Sun.

These 24-hour vibrations (circadian rhythms) affect complex animal behaviors such as prey-prey interactions and sleep / wake cycles, and temporal regulation of molecular functions of gene transcription and protein translation. Fine-tune.

In 2016, Kapahi’s laboratory Cell metabolism Fruit flies on a restricted diet not only extended lifespan, but also showed significant changes in circadian rhythms.

When Hodge joined the lab later that year, he needed a circadian process for whether the process of enhancing circadian function was altered by dietary changes, and for the longer lifespan seen in dietary restrictions. I wanted to dig deeper to understand if.

“Fruit flies have a very short lifespan, making them a very beautiful model that can screen many things at once,” says Hodge, a scientist at Fountain Therapeutics in South San Francisco.

The study is from an extensive study to determine which genes oscillate in a circadian rhythm when compared to those fed an unrestricted diet with only 10% of the protein in an unrestricted diet. started.

Soon, Hodge noticed a number of genes that responded to the diet and showed ups and downs at various times, or “rhythmic.”

He then discovered that all of the most activated rhythmic genes in dietary restrictions appear to come from the eye, especially photoreceptors, special neurons in the retina of the eye that respond to light.

This discovery led to a series of experiments designed to understand how eye function fits into the story of how dietary restrictions can extend lifespan. For example, they set up experiments showing that keeping flies in constant darkness extends their lifespan.

“It seemed very strange to us,” Hodge said. “We thought flies needed clues for rhythmic or circadian lighting.”

Then, using bioinformatics, I asked: Do eye genes that are rhythmic and responsive to dietary restrictions affect lifespan? The answer was yes.

“We always see our eyes as helping us to provide vision. We don’t think we have to protect to protect the whole organism,” said the University of California, San Francisco. Kapahi, who is also an associate professor of urology at the University of California, said.

Because the eyes are exposed to the outside world, immune defenses are very active and can cause inflammation, and long-term presence can cause or exacerbate a variety of common chronic illnesses. He explained.

In addition, light itself can cause photoreceptor degeneration and inflammation.

“Looking at the screen of a computer or phone and being exposed to light pollution late into the night is a very annoying situation for a circadian clock,” says Kapahi.

“It ruins eye protection, which can have the consequence of damaging not only the eyesight, but the rest of the body and the brain.”

Much needs to be understood about the role that the eye plays in the overall health and longevity of an organism. For example, how does the eye regulate lifespan and the same effect applies to other organisms?

The biggest question raised by this study, which may apply to humans, is simply whether mammalian photoreceptors affect lifespan.

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Hodge said it was probably not as good as the fruit flies, and that most of the fruit flies’ energy was directed to the eyes.

However, because photoreceptors are just special neurons, “the stronger association I claim is the role of circadian function, especially in diet-restricted neurons, and the use of these to function through aging. Is a way to maintain. “

Researchers can target molecular clocks to slow down aging once they understand how these processes work, Hodge said, and humans can activate the clock in their eyes. He added that it could help maintain vision. “It may be due to diet, narcotics, lifestyle changes … there’s a lot of really interesting research ahead,” he said.

About this neuroscience research news

author: Press office
sauce: Back Institute
contact: Press Office-Back Institute
image: The image is in the public domain

Independent research: Open access.
“”Dietary restrictions and transcription factor clocks delay eye aging to extend Drosophila lifespanAccording to Brian Hodge et al. Nature Communications

Overview

Dietary restrictions and transcription factor clocks delay eye aging to extend Drosophila lifespan

Many important processes of the eye are under circadian control, and circadian dysfunction has emerged as a potential driver of eye aging. Dietary restriction is one of the most powerful life-prolonging treatments and amplifies the circadian rhythm with age.

Here we show that dietary restrictions extend lifespan Drosophila melanogaster By promoting a circadian homeostatic process that protects the visual system from aging and light-related damage.

Altering the core molecular clock transcription factor, CLOCK, or CLOCK output gene of the positive limb accelerates visual aging, induces a systemic immune response, and shortens lifespan.

Diet-restricted flies are protected from the life-shortening effects of photoreceptor activation. Conversely, photoreceptor inactivation achieved by mutating rhodopsin or raising flies in constant darkness prolongs the lifespan of flies primarily fed a high nutritional diet. ..

Our findings establish the eye as a regulator of diet-sensitive lifespan and show that visual acuity is an antagonistic pleiotropic process that contributes to the aging of organisms.