Curcumin is an early-acting stage-specific inducer of extended functional longevity in Drosophila.

Larval feeding with curcumin induces an extended health span with significantly increased median and maximum longevities in the adult fly. This phenotype is diet insensitive and shows no additive effect on longevity when combined with an adult dietary restriction (DR) diet, suggesting that curcumin and DR operate via the same or overlapping pathways for this trait. This treatment significantly slows the aging rate so that it is comparable with that of genetically selected long lived animals.

Dietary restriction in Drosophila is dependent on mitochondrial efficiency and constrained by pre-existing extended longevity.

We tested the effects of dietary restriction (DR) on the standard w(1118) strain as well as on our previously described Ra and La strains and their reciprocal isogenic 'cybrid' lines containing heterologous nuclear-mitochondrial combinations. The w(1118) and Ra strains, but neither the La strains nor their 'cybrid' derivatives, are DR-inducible. The Ra and La animals are more robust than the w(1118) animals, and the Ra strain shows an upward shift in its DR threshold.