The Not So Sweet Truth About Sugar: The Effects of a sugary diet on Fruit Flies(Drosophila Melanogaster)

The purpose of this experiment is to better understand the effects of an unhealthy diet in living organisms.The increased consumption of sugar found in many foods and drinks has increased over the years worldwide but specially in the United States of America, research has shown the detrimental health consequences from high sugar intake in humans (National Research Council, 2013). Drosophila melanogaster, commonly known as fruit flies, are similar to humans anatomically, such as their digestive system (National Library of Medicine, 2011).
Therefore we can try to observe the effects of a high sugar diet and infer the effects on humans to help us understand the way our bodies react to a high sugar diet and the consequences to subsequent generations. This experiment looked at the effects of a high-sugar diet in fruit flies over the course of seven weeks. We observed two groups of fruit flies, one was given a normal diet of food and the other was given a diet of high sugar. We then looked at the subsequent fruit fly generation and measured changes in behavior and stress in each group. The flies given a high-sugar diet were observed to be more active and had fewer offspring than those given a normal diet. The results showed that a high sugar diet can be harmful to subsequent generations, affect reproduction, behavior and stress management.