Tag: Santharam Kolli

New York Times: Is Organic Better? Ask a Fruit Fly

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date April 18, 2013

New York Times reporter Tara Parker-Pope has covered research carried out in the fruit fly lab of SMU biologist Johannes H. Bauer.

The article on the New York Times Wellness blog covers the research of Bauer and Plano, Texas, high school student Ria Chhabra. “Is Organic Better? Ask a Fruit Fly” appeared April 17.

Bauer, an assistant professor in SMU’s Department of Biological Sciences, mentored Chhabra in her research to examine whether there would be health differences to fruit flies fed an organic diet or a nonorganic diet. Chhabra’s study found that flies fed an organic diet fared better on important health tests, particularly fertility and longevity.

Read the New York Times article.

EXCERPT:

Tara Parker-Pope
New York Times
When Ria Chhabra, a middle school student near Dallas, heard her parents arguing about the value of organic foods, she was inspired to create a science fair project to try to resolve the debate.

Three years later, Ria’s exploration of fruit flies and organic foods has not only raised some provocative questions about the health benefits of organic eating, it has also earned the 16-year-old top honors in a national science competition, publication in a respected scientific journal and university laboratory privileges normally reserved for graduate students.

The research, titled “Organically Grown Food Provides Health Benefits to Drosophila melanogaster,” tracked the effects of organic and conventional diets on the health of fruit flies. By nearly every measure, including fertility, stress resistance and longevity, flies that fed on organic bananas and potatoes fared better than those who dined on conventionally raised produce.

While the results can’t be directly extrapolated to human health, the research nonetheless paves the way for additional studies on the relative health benefits of organic versus conventionally grown foods. Fruit fly models are often used in research because their short life span allows scientists to evaluate a number of basic biological effects over a relatively brief period of time, and the results provide clues for better understanding disease and biological processes in humans.

Read the New York Times article.

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Tags Dedman College, Johannes H. Bauer, Ria Chhabra, Santharam Kolli, SMU Department of Biological Sciences

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Le Journal de la Science: Et si manger bio était bel et bien meilleur pour la santé?

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date April 15, 2013

Le Journal de la Science: And if eating organic was indeed better for your health?

Science journalist Alain Tranet writing in the Paris-based science publication Le Journal de la Science has covered research carried out in the fruit fly lab of SMU biologist Johannes H. Bauer by Plano, Texas, high school student Ria Chhabra. The article, “Et si manger bio était bel et bien meilleur pour la santé?,” published April 3.

Read the article in French. An English translation follows the French excerpt below.

EXCERPT:

By Alain Tranet
Le Journal de la Science
Manger bio serait-il en définitive meilleur pour la santé ? C’est en tout cas ce que suggère une étude américaine menée… sur la mouche du vinaigre. Un résultat qui contredit plusieurs précédents travaux.

Manger bio a-t-il un effet bénéfique sur la santé humaine ? Alors que ce débat fait rage depuis de nombreuses années maintenant, une nouvelle étude menée sur la drosophile met en lumière l’existence d’une influence positive de l’alimentation biologique sur la santé de cette mouche (laquelle est, rappellons-le, un modèle animal abondamment utilisé par les scientifiques pour toutes sortes d’expérimentation, et notamment celles portant sur les mécanismes cellulaires du vieillissement). Ce résultat a été publié par des biologistes américains de la Southern Methodist University (Dallas, États-Unis) dans la revue en accès ouvert PLoS One, sous le titre “Organically Grown Food Provides Health Benefits to Drosophila melanogaster”.

Quelle est la nature exacte du résultat obtenu par le biologiste Johannes H. Bauer et ses collègues ? Ils ont constaté que des mouches drosophiles nourries durant toute leur (courte) existence avec des aliments issus de l’agriculture biologique présentaient une longévité accrue et une plus grande fertilité par rapport à des drosophiles nourries avec des produits issus de l’agriculture conventionnelle.

Plus précisément, les scientifiques ont testé les effets sur la santé de quatre produits issus de l’agriculture biologique : des pommes de terre, du raisin des bananes et du soja. Pour évaluer les effets séparés de ces quatre aliments, quatre groupes de 200 drosophiles ont été constitués, recevant chacun l’un ou l’autre de ces produits durant l’intégralité de leur vie, ainsi que quatre groupes contrôle constitués de 200 drosophiles recevant également durant toute leur existence l’équivalent non biologique de l’un ou l’autre de ces quatre aliments.

TRANSLATION:
Is eating organic ultimately better for our health? That’s what a new U.S. study suggests … for the fruit fly. The result contradicts several previous studies.

Does eating organic have a beneficial effect on human health? While this debate has been raging for many years now, a new study on Drosophila highlights the existence of a positive effect of organic food on the health of the fly (which is, remember, an animal model widely used by scientists for all kinds of experiments, including those on the cellular mechanisms of aging). This result was published by American biologists from Southern Methodist University (Dallas, USA) in the open access journal PLoS One, titled “Organically Grown Food Provides Health Benefits to Drosophila melanogaster.”

What is the exact nature of the result obtained by the biologist Johannes H. Bauer and his colleagues? They found that fruit flies fed throughout their (short) life with organically grown food had increased longevity and higher fertility compared to fruit flies fed with products from conventional farming.

Specifically, the scientists tested the effects on health of four kinds of produce from organic farming: potatoes, grapes, bananas and soybeans. To assess the separate effects of these four foods, 200 fruit flies were sorted into four groups, each receiving either of these products during their entire life, and four control groups consisting of 200 Drosophila also receiving an equivalent non-organic diet.

Read the article.

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Fast Company: Organic Food Will Make You Live Longer And Be More Fertile (If You’re A Fly)

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date April 5, 2013

Journalist Ariel Schwartz on Fast Company’s Co.Exist web site has covered research carried out in the fruit fly lab of SMU biologist Johannes H. Bauer.

The article, which covers the research of Bauer and Plano, Texas, high school student Ria Chhabra, appeared April 1, “Organic Food Will Make You Live Longer And Be More Fertile (If You’re A Fly).”

Read the Fast Company article.

EXCERPT:

Ariel Schwartz
Fast Company
A new study found that the bugs that ate an organic diet were more healthy and lived longer. So, ask yourself, how much like a fly are you?

Organic food can help you live longer–if you happen to be a fruit fly. A study from researchers at Southern Methodist University found that fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) fed on a diet of organic produce experienced increased fertility and longevity. This could have implications for humans, but don’t start using the study as a pro-organic talking point just yet.

The researchers involved in the study (including high school student Ria Chhabra, who was inspired to initiate the study after speaking with her parents about the benefits of organic food) nourished growing fruit flies with produce–bananas, potatoes, raisins, and soy beans bought from a grocery store. Some of the flies received conventional produce, and others ate organic versions.

Ultimately, the researchers found that none of the flies lived that long–as they note in the study, “Drosophila cultured on produce extract diets were generally shorter lived than flies raised on regular lab food, presumably due to limited nutritional balance in diets prepared from a single produce source.” Within the confines of the study, however, the flies who ate on the organic foods fared best (though the flies that gorged themselves on just organic raisins fared worse so, you know, be careful). The flies fed with organic produce also had a longer egg production peak than their counterparts.

At this point, you might be thinking that the study is a major rebuke to another study from 2012 that found organic food to be no more healthy than conventionally grown food. But that study actually looked at humans, not fruit flies. Another problem: The more recent study provides no indications as to why the fruit flies lived longer and more fertile lives. So take any pro-organic conclusions with a grain of natural sea salt.

Read the Fast Company article.

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MNN: Organic food is good for flies, study finds

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date April 2, 2013

The Mother Nature Network covered research carried out in the fruit fly lab of SMU biologist Johannes H. Bauer by Plano, Texas, high school student Ria Chhabra in its March 27, 2013, article “Organic food is good for flies, study finds.”

Read the Mother Nature Network article.

EXCERPT:

By Russell McLendon
Mother Nature Network
Fruit flies live longer and lay more eggs when they eat organic food, according to a study published by university researchers and an ambitious Texas teenager.

After listening to her parents debate the benefits of buying organic food, Ria Chhabra decided to take matters into her own hands. The Texas high-school student — along with biology researchers from Southern Methodist University — began studying how an organic diet affects the health of fruit flies, hoping to shed light on potential benefits for people.

Fruit flies and humans have lots of obvious physiological differences, but the insects are still common test subjects for studying human health, since about 77 percent of known human disease genes have a relevant match in the fruit-fly genome. And based on Chhabra’s research, both species may have a lot to gain by eating more organic food.

“To our surprise, in the majority of our tests of flies on organic foods, the flies fed organic diets did much better on our health tests than the flies fed conventional food,” says SMU biologist Johannes Bauer, who served as Chhabra’s mentor, in a press release. “Longevity and fertility are the two most important aspects of fly life. On both of these tests, flies fed organic diets performed much better than flies fed conventional diets. They lived longer, had higher fertility, and had a much higher lifetime reproductive output.”

That’s a promising result, but as Chhabra points out, it’s still unclear why exactly the organic-fed flies turned out healthier.

“We don’t know why the flies on the organic diet did better,” says Chhabra, a student at Clark High School in Plano, Texas. “That will require further research. But this is a start toward understanding potential health benefits.”

Read the Mother Nature Network article.

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Tags Dedman College, Johannes H. Bauer, Ria Chhabra, Santharam Kolli, SMU Department of Biological Sciences

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Outside: Eating Organic Helps Flies Live Longer

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 28, 2013

Outside magazine writer Adam Roy has covered research carried out in the fruit fly lab of SMU biologist Johannes H. Bauer by Plano, Texas, high school student Ria Chhabra in its March 27, 2013, article “Eating organic helps flies live longer.”

Read the Outside article.

EXCERPT:

By Adam Roy
Outside Online
Eating organic food may help you live longer—if you’re a fly, that is. A group of researchers from Southern Methodist University offered fruit flies extracts of different varieties of organic and conventional produce purchased at the same Whole Foods in Texas. They found that flies who fed on organic potatoes, raisins and soy enjoyed a significantly longer lifespan and were more fertile.

The new report follows a study published by Stanford researchers last year which found that organic produce wasn’t significantly more nutritious than conventionally-raised fruits and vegetables, provoking a debate on the merits of chemical-free food. While the new study’s authors stop short of saying that the results are as applicable to humans as to flies, they do suggest that other animals could reap some of the same health benefits.

Read the Outside article.

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Tags Dedman College, Johannes H. Bauer, Ria Chhabra, Santharam Kolli, SMU Department of Biological Sciences

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Dallas Observer: SMU Researchers Prove that Eating Organic Makes You Live Longer — If You’re a Fly

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 28, 2013

Dallas Observer journalist Eric Nicholson has covered research carried out in the fruit fly lab of SMU biologist Johannes H. Bauer by Plano, Texas, high school student Ria Chhabra in its March 27, 2013, article “SMU Researchers Prove that Eating Organic Makes You Live Longer — If You’re a Fly.”

Read the Observer article.

EXCERPT:

Eric Nicholson
Dallas Observer
There was a minor furor in the media last year when a study conducted by a researcher at Standford’s medical school concluded that organic fruits and vegetables are no healthier than their conventionally raised counterparts. This wasn’t quite as newsworthy as the headlines made it sound, since the study was looking mainly at vitamin content of produce, not at the chemicals that were or were not sprayed on it. Precious few people buy organic carrots expecting through-the-roof levels of beta carotene.

Then again, maybe they should. A new study by researchers at SMU, which is clearly more definitive than the Stanford one because it’s newer, suggests that eating organic food may cause you to live longer. If you’re a fruit fly.

They chose fruit flies essentially because they’re easier to keep on an all-organic diet, since they can’t sneak off and binge on Twinkies and they don’t object to consuming a single type of liquified produce from Whole Foods (either potatoes, raisins, bananas, or soybeans, depending on the fly) for their entire lives. They also live for about a month, making it easier to parse out the effect of diet on lifespan.

The Atlantic reported this morning on the study’s results:

Read the Observer article.

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The Atlantic: Eating Organic Food Associated With Longer Lives (in Flies)

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 28, 2013

The Atlantic has covered research carried out in the fruit fly lab of SMU biologist Johannes H. Bauer by Plano, Texas, high school student Ria Chhabra in its March 27, 2013, article “Eating Organic Food Associated With Longer Lives (in Flies).”

Read The Atlantic article.

EXCERPT:

Lindsay Abrams
The Atlantic
Fruit flies fed organic produce from Whole Foods lived longer and laid more eggs than those fed the store’s conventionally grown offerings.

PROBLEM: Last September when Stanford researchers came out with findings that organic food doesn’t confer any additional nutritional value, the world countered: Of course not. While organic fruits and vegetables can claim health benefits in that they lack any number of additives that come included with traditionally farmed foods, calling produce organic doesn’t make it any healthier than it already, by virtue of being a fruit or vegetable, is supposed to be.

Still, that doesn’t mean researchers can’t turn it around and ask if produce containing chemicals, preservatives, and hormones are, comparatively, a little bit less healthy. While we know organic food serves the interests of the environment, public health, and human rights, there’s a lot we still don’t know about its benefits for the individual supermarket shopper deciding between the banana with the “organic” sticker and the one that’s heaped in with the other, conventional foods.

METHODS: At Southern Methodist University, researchers raised fruit flies on extracts of typical grocery store produce. Different groups of flies received either organic or conventional versions of potatoes, soybeans, raisins, or bananas, all purchased from the same Texas Whole Foods.

RESULTS: Despite the relatively poor health exhibited by all — as happens when one lives its entire life consuming only one type of food — the flies who ate organic generally performed better on a number of health measures.

Specifically, diets of organic potatoes, raisins, and soy were all associated with significantly longer lifespans, with no difference seen between organic and conventional bananas. Flies raised on organic versions of all four foods were more fertile.

Read The Atlantic article.

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Tags Dedman College, Johannes H. Bauer, Ria Chhabra, Santharam Kolli, SMU Department of Biological Sciences

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CBS News: Organic foods linked to better fertility, longevity in fruit flies

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 27, 2013

CBS News has covered research carried out in the fruit fly lab of SMU biologist Johannes H. Bauer by Plano, Texas, high school student Ria Chhabra in its March 27, 2013, article “Organic foods linked to better fertility, longevity in fruit flies.”

Read the CBS News article.

EXCERPT:

Ryan Jaslow
CBS News
New research shows eating lots of organic food can lead to a healthier life — if you happen to be a fruit fly.

Scientists fed fruit flies extracts from either organic foods or non-organic, conventionally-grown foods, and found the organic group was healthier and lived longer than their counterparts.

“We don’t know why the flies on the organic diet did better. That will require further research. But this is a start toward understanding potential health benefits,” study leader Ria Chhabra, a student at Clark High School in Plano, Texas, said in a written statement.

That’s right, the study was led by a Texas high school student who got the idea from hearing her parents discuss whether or not it was worth it to buy organic foods for health reasons.

So, Chhabra teamed up with her mentor, Dr. Johannes H. Bauer, an assistant professor of biology at Southern Methodist University in Texas.

“It’s rare for a high school student to have such a prominent position in the lab. But Ria has tremendous energy and curiosity, and that convinced me to give this research project a try,” Bauer said.

The fruit fly, or Drosophila melanogaster, is used in Bauer’s lab and other research facilities to study human diseases including diabetes, heart disease and even Alzheimer’s. Fruit flies are widely used in research because they’re cheaper and have a shorter life cycle than other lab animal models.

Read the CBS News article.

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UPI: Some organic food may be healthier

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 27, 2013

The international news wire service UPI has covered research carried out in the fruit fly lab of SMU biologist Johannes H. Bauer by Plano, Texas, high school student Ria Chhabra in its March 27, 2013, article “Some organic food may be healthier.”

Read the UPI article.

EXCERPT:

UPI
Fruit flies fed an organic diet did better on tests of general health and two significant measures of health — fertility and longevity, U.S. researchers say.

Ria Chhabra a student at Clark High School in Plano, Texas; biologist Johannes H. Bauer of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas; and Santharam Kolli, a research associate at SMU, said the data demonstrated fruit flies raised on organic food extracts performed better on the majority of health tests.

“We don’t know why the flies on the organic diet did better. That will require further research. But this is a start toward understanding potential health benefits,” Chhabra said in a statement.

Chhabra said the study was inspired by a conversation her parents had on the merits of buying organic food.

Bauer said his laboratory utilized one of the most widely used model systems, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, often used to study human diseases such as diabetes, heart function and Alzheimer’s disease because of the fruit fly’s short life cycle and low cost.

The study, published in PLoS One, also found some negative or neutral results using diets prepared from organic raisins, which might suggest the beneficial health effects of organic diets might be dependent on specific food items, Bauer said.

Read the UPI article.

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Fruit flies fed organic diets are healthier than flies fed nonorganic diets, study finds

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 25, 2013

Fruit flies raised on diets based on organic foods performed better on a variety of health tests, including fertility and longevity

A new study looking at the potential health benefits of organic versus non-organic food found that fruit flies fed an organic diet recorded better health outcomes than flies fed a nonorganic diet.

The study from the lab of SMU biologist Johannes H. Bauer, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, found that fruit flies raised on diets of organic foods performed better on several tests for general health.

“While these findings are certainly intriguing, what we now need to determine is why the flies on the organic diets did better, especially since not all the organic diets we tested provided the same positive health outcomes,” said Bauer, principal investigator for the study.

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Fruit flies on organic diets showed improvements on the most significant measures of health, namely fertility and longevity, said high school student researcher Ria Chhabra.

“We don’t know why the flies on the organic diet did better. That will require further research. But this is a start toward understanding potential health benefits,” said Chhabra, a student at Clark High School in Plano, Texas, who led the experiment.

Chhabra sought to conduct the experiments after hearing her parents discuss whether it’s worth it to buy organic foods to achieve possible health benefits.

Bauer, an assistant professor in SMU’s Department of Biological Sciences, mentored Chhabra by helping guide and design her research experiments. The research focus of Bauer’s fruit fly lab is nutrition and its relationship to longevity, health and diabetes.

“It’s rare for a high school student to have such a prominent position in the lab. But Ria has tremendous energy and curiosity, and that convinced me to give this research project a try,” Bauer said.

The findings, “Organically grown food provides health benefits to Drosophila melanogaster,” have been published in the open access journal PLOS One. Buaer and Chhabra co-authored the paper with Santharam Kolli, a research associate at SMU. The article is available from PLOS One online at http://bit.ly/RGB8LJ.

Flies on organic food performed better on some health tests
“The data demonstrated that flies raised on organic food extracts by-and-large performed better on the majority of health tests,” reported the researchers.

It remains unclear why organic diets delivered better health, the researchers said.

The Bauer lab results come at a time when the health effects of organic food are widely debated.

Prior studies by other researchers have found conflicting results when reviewing the scientific literature for data. While several studies have shown elevated nutrient content and lower pesticide contamination levels in organic food, a recent publication reporting a large-scale analysis of all available studies concluded no clear trend was apparent.

Fruit flies were fed extracts from produce purchased at a grocery store
In order to investigate whether organic foods are healthier for consumers, the lab utilized one of the most widely used model systems, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Because of the low costs associated with fly research and the fly’s short life cycle, researchers use fruit flies to study human diseases, from diabetes to heart function to Alzheimer’s disease.

The Bauer lab fruit flies were fed organic and nonorganic produce purchased from a leading national grocery retailer of organic and conventional foods. The flies were fed extracts made from organic and conventional potatoes, soybeans, raisins and bananas. They were not fed any additional nutritional supplements. The researchers tested the effects of each food type independently and avoided any confounding effects of a mixed diet.

The health tests measured longevity, fertility, stress and starvation resistance.

Findings suggest beneficial health effects dependent on specific foods
Some negative or neutral results were obtained using diets prepared from organic raisins, which suggests the beneficial health effects of organic diets are dependent on the specific food item, Bauer said. That might explain some of the inconsistent results in the published studies in the scientific literature, he said, noting some studies suggest there is a nutritional benefit from organic food, while others suggest there is not.

“To our surprise, in the majority of our tests of flies on organic foods, the flies fed organic diets did much better on our health tests than the flies fed conventional food,” Bauer said. “Longevity and fertility are the two most important aspects of fly life. On both of these tests, flies fed organic diets performed much better than flies fed conventional diets. They lived longer, had higher fertility, and had a much higher lifetime reproductive output.”

Factors such as soil condition and latitude where the produce was grown weren’t considered, mimicking a typical grocery store shopping experience. — Margaret Allen

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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

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Fruit flies raised on diets based on organic foods performed better on a variety of health tests, including fertility and longevity

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