Death vortex - a period of foretold death

Life is biologically divided into three stages: development, aging and end of life. But recently, some researchers argue that there is a fourth phase just before the end of life that can tell us about the time when death is near and named "death spiral." ".

Death vortex has many different forecasts.(Photo: lassedesignen.)

Biologists are continuing to study the "death vortex" in fruit flies . From the results showed that the stage of death spiral can be identified through the decline in fertility rate .

"We believe that this is part of the genetically programmed death process," Live Science quoted Laurence Mueller , head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California in Irvine, USA.

Through research on fruit flies scientists hope to understand more about the final stage of human life.

In 2015, according to a report published in the Gerontology magazine, researchers found that the day the female flies stopped laying eggs was an important predictor of death. 10 days before stopping spawning, the female fertility indicators were reduced. They argue that all causes of flies' death also affect fertility in the last days of their lives.

According to a recent report by the research team, Mueller determined that this decline time is consistent with their estimates of the time of death. 10 days is 1/3 of the fruit fly's life cycle.

A study from 2002 in Mediterranean flies (medfly) showed that 97% of male flies began to lie on their stomachs about 16 days before dying.

In another study, the subjects were further expanded on nematodes and zebrafish. They put dyes in their food to see if their intestines show increased fluid leakage (permeability) before dying.

If permeability increases, the dye will leak into the animal's body and its body will change color like blue for flies, fish and fluorescent green for roundworms.

Research results published in Scientific Reports show that this intestinal fluid leak is a sign of near-death death for all three species.

Many scholars hope to study the vortex of death in fruit flies and other organisms that open new doors to help learn more about the pre-death weakness of people in the future.

A study from 2008 was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, providing evidence of a death spiral for people. In this study, the researchers analyzed data collected about the physical and cognitive abilities of 2,262 Danish people aged 92-100 between 1998 and 2005.

They evaluated the ability to perform daily activities, measure hand grip, assess the level of cognitive decline. They found that the physical and cognitive assessment scores of individuals who died within the first two years of the study were significantly lower than those of survivors until 2005.

According to Mueller, we can see a marked increase in physical limitations just before someone dies because of the body's cycle of death. He hopes that studies of death vortices in other organisms may open up more hints about this mysterious phase.

In the near future scientists will selectively breed flies to create groups of objects that undergo a vortex of death with different durations."After creating different gene-bearing populations that way, you can find out which genes need to change to reduce the duration of the death spiral ," Mueller said.

Since then, researchers have been able to find in the human genome similar genetic markers because humans have a relative genome like fruit flies. According to yourgenome.com, 75% of human disease genes are also present in fruit flies.

Mueller hopes to improve the quality of life of people at the end of life rather than prevent or even delay death. "Even if we can't change the time you die, we want you to be able to live normally until the last moments ," Mueller said.