U-M HEALTH SYSTEMHermaphroditic worms and male flies exposed to the presence of potential sexual partners show signs of aging and die sooner than animals who aren't subjected to others' scents. Sex, however, can rescue the untoward effects of pheromones among the flies, scientists have found. “The simplest way to think about it is that the flies are frustrated,” Scott Pletcher, a University of Michigan researcher and the senior author of the study, published last week (November 29) in Science, told ScienceNow.
Pletcher and his colleagues had found that genetically engineering male fruit flies to produce female pheromones made other male fruit flies waste away and die sooner. But when those males were able to copulate after detecting the pheromones, their lifespans were not affected. In a press release, Pletcher said that “it may not be a myth that sexual frustration is a health issue. Expecting sex without any sexual reward was detrimental to [the flies’] health and cut their lives short.”
In another study on the worm C. elegans, scientists found that placing hermaphroditic worms on a dish that had either currently or previously housed male worms caused the “premature demise” of the hermaphrodites. The research group, led by Anne Brunet of Stanford University, also found ...
