Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I found this really interesting article through a link on Sunday’s with Sisson and wanted to share it with you.
The article discusses recent research into the longevity of ants. While this may seem inconsequential, or unrelated to humans, the findings are somewhat surprising and unexpected.
The first part of the article focuses on the relative lifespan of queen ants compared to worker ants. While there is significant variety amongst different ant species, queen ants tend to live significantly longer despite their increased metabolic functioning.
The queen consumes exponentially more calories due to the increased metabolic demands of laying thousands of eggs. The increased calorie consumption and metabolic functioning means significantly more insulin production. Increased insulin is linked to aging as well as a host of other diseases in humans and other animals.
These ants have evolved into social creatures where only the queen is reproductive. This has lead to some other evolutionary adaptations. When a queen is removed from the colony worker ants will change into “gamergates” or pseudo queens. They start eating more, producing more insulin, and becoming reproductive.
The researchers expected the increased insulin levels to lead to decreased lifespan. However, the insulin signaling in the gamergates deviated from the standard expression and led to increased lifespan.
“Further work showed that the ovaries of the gamergates strongly expressed a protein, Imp-L2, that ignored the MAP kinase pathway but interfered with the second pathway in the fat body. “This protein appears to have the function of protecting one pathway that allows metabolism, but inhibiting the pathway that leads to aging,” Desplan said.”
The second part of the articles describes a parasitic tapeworm that infects acorn ants as an intermediate host. The cestode lays eggs that are eaten by acorn ants. The tapeworm must live inside these acorn ants, that make their nest in a single acorn, until the ants are hopefully eaten by a woodpecker.
If a woodpecker eats an acorn that has infected acorn ants in it, the tapeworm then moves from it’s intermediate host, to it’s final host.
The infected ants are very easy to tell apart from the uninfected ants because their color changes from brown to yellow.
You would expect that the parasite infected ants would have a shorter lifespan, since the parasite is sustaining itself off of the host. However the opposite was observed.
Infected ants lived five times as long as uninfected ants, in part due to a cocktail of different proteins pumped into the ants by the parasite.
Researchers are working to distinguish, analyze and retest these various proteins and antioxidants to see if the results are reproducible outside of parasitic infection.
From an evolutionary and adaptive standpoint this makes a ton of sense. The parasite’s ultimate goal is to get to the woodpecker. The longer the ants live, the greater the chances that they will be eaten by a woodpecker. Increasing the host lifespan is in the best interests of the parasite.
Whether it is increased metabolic functioning to step into the queen role, or parasitic infection, for the ants in these studies, what doesn’t kill them makes them live longer. (Not coincidentally, the title of one of the studies that the article was based on)
On some sort of intuitive level didn’t we already know this. The individual protein pathways and antioxidants are compelling. I hope the research leads to new understanding and potentially even clinical, pharmaceutical, and lifestyle interventions. But there is so much more to a healthy lifespan than a protein cocktail secreted from a tapeworm.
I like to bounce around on this platform, ping-ponging back and forth between topics that pique my interest. But every post, regardless of topic, has some sweat in it. Challenges that push the body both physically and mentally.
There is a mental clarity and a physical calm that follows these efforts. (SerenityThroughSweat) but there is also the undeniable benefit, that what doesn’t kill us, helps us live longer.
Thanks for joining me stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.