Inside insulin signaling, communication is key to long life.

In a recent Nature paper, Tatar and colleagues show that inhibition of insulin/insulin-like growth factor (IGF) signaling specifically in the adipose tissue of Drosophila melanogaster retards organismal aging, increases resistance to oxidative stress, augments lipid deposition, and restricts insulin signaling in peripheral tissues by a cell-non-autonomous mechanism. Consistent with recent work in the worm, these results suggest that insulin/IGF signaling itself may mediate communication among various tissues to influence organismal longevity.