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Chronically lonely flies overeat and lose sleep

The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is a social animal. Flies kept in chronic social isolation have now been found to show dysregulated sleep and feeding patterns, casting light on how prolonged absence of social contact affects health.
  1. Joel D. Levine

    1. Joel D. Levine is in the Department of Biology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada.

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The neuroscientist Bruce McEwen wrote1 in 2002 that stress is the foremost public-health issue of our times, and that “when activated chronically it can cause damage and accelerate disease”. Many stressors are of a social nature, and McEwen1 and others (see go.nature.com/3s3b4kw) noted with concern that certain social pressures, such as poverty, inadequate education and violent crime, can contribute to the development of illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and depression. However, little is understood about how these social pressures translate to disease. Writing in Nature, Li et al.2 present a fascinating and creative approach to modelling the effects of social context on an individual’s health, using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

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Nature 597, 179-180 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02194-2

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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