Dietary sucrose defines lifespan and metabolism in Drosophila

Nutrition affects various life-history traits. We used fruit flies Drosophila melanogaster to determine whether life-history traits, particularly life span and metabolism, are affected by dietary sucrose content. We fed flies by four different diets containing constant yeast concentration and increasing amounts of sugar ranged from 1% to 20%. We found that low sucrose diet increases female lifespan. We also showed, that low dietary sucrose maximized malate dehydrogenase, aspartate aminotransferase activity in males and lactate dehydrogenase activity in females. In addition, dietary carbohydrate has a considerable impact on urea level, suggesting that dietary carbohydrate impacts overall metabolism. Our findings revealed the influence of dietary sugar on metabolic enzymes activities, indicating an existence of optimal nutritional conditions for prolongevity phenotype and confirming an important impact of dietary sugar on life-history traits.