Curcumin Extends Life Span, Improves Health Span, and Modulates the Expression of Age-Associated Aging Genes inDrosophila melanogaster

Abstract

The observed positive effects of curcumin on life span and health span in two different D. melanogaster strains demonstrate a potential applicability of curcumin treatment in mammals. The ability of curcumin to mitigate the expression levels of age-associated genes in young flies suggests that the action of curcumin on these genes is a cause, rather than an effect, of its life span-extending effects.

Curcumin enhances parental reproductive lifespan and progeny viability in Drosophila melanogaster

“…2). Lifespan extension due to lower rate of time-dependent death rate as a result of resveratrol (Chandrashekara and Shakarad 2011;Wang et al 2013) and A. vera extract (Chandrashekara and Shakarad 2011) and curcumin (Lee et al 2010;Shen et al 2012;Soh et al 2013) supplementation was reported for independent D. melanogaster populations whose genetic backgrounds were either different or the same from those used in the present study. In the present study, the gender of the flies influenced the magnitude of response to curcumin supplementation.…”

“…In the present study, the gender of the flies influenced the magnitude of response to curcumin supplementation. Sex and genetic background-dependent lifespan extension by curcumin has also been observed by Lee et al (2010). Curcumin-supplemented diet leads to an increase in superoxide dismutase activity (Shen et al 2012), suggesting the better scavenging of ROS.…”

“…Drosophila melanogaster has been in the forefront of research on aging interventions. Our focus here is to utilize the information from studies that have attempted to understand the dynamics of life-history traits through dietary manipulations (Tatar et al 2014) in this model organism and elaborate further as direct genetical interventions in humans are not possible due to technical and ethical reasons (Lee et al 2010). A number of studies in the recent past have shown the beneficial effects of nutraceuticals-secondary compounds produced by plants in promoting healthy aging in invertebrate models through reduced oxidative damage (Dong et al 2012).…”

“…Spermidine supplementation of ordinary fly food increased the mean lifespan of flies up to 30 % (Eisenberg et al 2009). Curcumin supplementation of sucrose-yeast diets extended the fly lifespan through upregulation of superoxide dismutase (Shen et al 2012) and protection against oxidative stress (Lee et al 2010;Soh et al 2013). It is evident that the primary mode of action of nutraceuticals seems to be through scavenging of reactive oxygen species from the mitochondria and other cellular sources.…”

“…The ability to move against gravity and climb is suggested to indicate the level of physical fitness of test animals (Lee et al 2010). Vertical climbing ability of male flies that emerged from different treatment bottles was assessed.…”