The Effect of Diet on the Lifespan of Drosophila melanogaster

This experiment was conducted in an effort to show the effect of diet on one’s lifespan by using Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism. Drosophila (fruit flies) are often used as a model organism for humans. In this experiment, Drosophila were fed according to various popular diets, and their death rates were compared to those Drosophila on a control group diet of Carolina Fruit Fly Food. Trial one of this experiment began when four groups of Drosophila were transferred into four separate vials. The amount of flies in each vial were counted. Each vial contained food which was based on a certain diet. One vial had food according to an Atkins diet, one to a Paleo diet, one to a Vegan diet, and one to a control diet. The vials were left for one week. At the end of that week, the percentage of the flies that had died were counted. At the start of this experiment, it was hypothesized that if one group of flies was fed based on a more restrictive diet, then their death percentage would be higher than that of a control diet. The results of this experiment did not support the hypothesis. Results showed that the control diet had the lowest death percentage with an average of 45%, while the Paleo diet had the highest death percentage with an average of 97.83%. From this data, it was concluded that restrictive fad diets can be rather harmful in comparison to a more control diet.