Fruit flies’s brains are wired very much humans and therefore studying their behavior when manipulating their brain hormones could lead to a solution.
Fruit flies become hyperactive when they are starved and fly around feverishly, looking for food. The researchers say this hyperactivity happens because adipokinetic hormone that acts like glucagon, a peptide hormone secreted by the pancreas raising blood glucose levels, is released when fruit flies are starved. Just like glucagon this triggers the release of sugar to provide energy until the next meal arrives. This hormone release is triggered by an enzyme, AMP-activated kinase.
The researchers tested by switching off AMP-activated kinase so that no adipokinetic hormone is released in the fruit flies’ brains.The sugar release in the cells decreased, the flies were not hyperactive despite their facing starvation and all this was almost immediate.
“Since fruit flies and humans share 30 percent of the same genes and our brains are essentially wired the same way, it suggests that this discovery could inform metabolic research in general and diabetes research specifically,” said Johnson, in a press release.
This research leads to potential treatment for curing diabetes. Glucagon raises blood sugar and insulin reduces it but it’s difficult to study the human pancreas. Therefore studying the fruit fly could lead to a drug that will target glucagon and possibly eliminate insulin shots.
There could be a weight loss drug that would turn on all AMP-activated kinase in the body and trick the body into thinking it is exercising.
