Autophagy is a way your body can clean out damaged cells, in order to regenerate newer, healthier
cells. Think of it like your bodys way of recycling itself. And The term autophagy, really
became popular in current times, with the rise of fasting-type diets, which looked at autophagy as
a means to lose weight and create younger cells at the same time. And if you do a quick search, youll
find a number of videos all touting the benefits of autophagy, this video will be different because
we will also look at the potential harms of autophagy that others may have ignored. This is so
you can get a complete breakdown of it all right here and see if autophagy is worth it for you.
If you guys are new here, this channel is all about helping you make informed decisions as well
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as well. Also, if you guys are on instagram, you can follow me there too. Now without wasting
anymore time, lets get straight into it. What is autophagy
The word autophagy comes from two Greek words, “autos,” meaning "self," and “phagomai” meaning
“to eat.” Put it together, you get: “self eating”. But why on earth would you want to eat yourself.
Well you wouldnt, you would want your cells to eat themselves. And what do i mean? The easiest way to
explain it, is to think of it as quality control for your cells. You see, over time, Too many junk
components in a cell take up space and can slow or prevent a cell from proper function. Kind of like
when you have a lot of apps on your phone that slow your phone down, you need to delete some,
to free up some space, to get your phone working normal again. Autophagy remakes the clutter into
the selected cell components you need and optimizes your cells’ performance by 1:
destroying pathogens inside a cell that can damage it, 2: getting rid of nonfunctional cell parts
that slow it down, and 3: Recycles damaged cell parts into fully functioning cell parts. And all
this is important because it essentially is: one way your body can fight off disease and
live a longer and healthier life along the way. And all this already is taking place inside you
to some degree. In fact, a lot of it happens when you are asleep, unless you had one of
these before bed. Cuz then, your cells would be preoccupied with digesting that. And You don't
really experience any symptoms when autophagy is doing its thing, because its turned on in
the background. Its silent. So the question is how do you amplify it or how do you induce it to
take more advantage of it, if its meant to fight off disease, lose weight, help me live longer,
and possibly fight cancer and alzheimers disease, what are the steps I need to take,
to get more benefits out of autophagy. Well to answer that, lets take a look
at what turns autophagy on. And there are 3 main ways to do it. The first is: calorie restriction.
Generally a 10-40% reduction may work well in this setting. Because essentially what your doing is:
Instead of depriving your body of calories completely (as with fasting), you limit them.
And This forces your cells into autophagy to compensate for the lost nutrients. The second
is fasting. And this is a big one, and talked about a lot when it comes to autophagy. Fasting
deprives your body of nutrients, forcing it to repurpose cell components to function. And this
relates to Both intermittent fasting and extended fasting which increases autophagy. And the big
question is how long do you need to fast to get the benefits? Im sure thats what your wondering.
There isnt a ton of studies that measured the length of time needed on humans to achieve it,
because a lot of it was done on mice, and one day in a mouse is different than 1 day in a human,
metabolically speaking. And I cant imagine how many variables exist with this,
as everyone is different and they will achieve it at different rates but some Research has shown
that autophagy kicks in after 12-16 hours of continuous fasting. While the cleveland clinic,
mentions 24 to 48 hours. So it depends. And lastly, exercise. As exercise can also
induce autophagy in muscle tissue. By increasing, what is known as autophagy markers in the body,
Microtubule-associated protein light chain 3 or lc3 for short, and if you look at this interesting
study on exercise and autophagy, the main findings were that a single exercise bout increased LC3I,
LC3II, and BNIP3 protein in human skeletal muscle and that 8 weeks of exercise training
increased basal LC3I, BNIP3, and Parkin protein. Now the parkin protein is interesting, because
it mediates the engulfment of mitochondria, eliminating the impaired or faulty mitochondria.
And this is known as mitophagy, which also has powerful implications on fighting disease in the
body as well. And this is why exercise benefits are so diverse, since you can find it even on a
mitochondrial level. So next time, when youre on a run, know that your mitochondria says thanks.
So now that we know what activates it: restricting calories, fasting, and exercise,
be it moderate or intense. What are some of its drawbacks, so we can go full circle here.
Now the drawbacks really come down to the whole idea that autophagy is a double edged sword.
Which means there are positives and negatives as more and more research comes to the table.
For example, Autophagy can prevent the development of cancer by getting rid of damaged cell
components which we talked about, which is amazing but then can also help tumor cells survive under
stress at later stages. Because essentially they build tolerance and strength. And when it comes to
infection. In some bacterial and viral infections, autophagy has been found to be good with certain
species and bad with others. Because some bacteria and viruses subvert the autophagy process to
replicate and spread, so it can actually help some species. The double edged sword can also
be seen in neurodegenerative diseases as well, playing both positive and negative effects. And
this is why this topic can be tricky to navigate, since its so new, yet so exciting. Ever since,
the famous Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi, who I give a lot of credit too, won the
Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2016 for his research on how cells recycle and renew their content, the
question on optimizing this has been asked time and time again by many other scientists, which
makes me believe the future is bright when it comes to understanding this process in more depth.
So in the meantime, the next question arises, Is there a way to induce autophagy without calorie
restriction, fasting, and exercise? Because maybe you want a more subtle way to activate this.
While, more research is needed since I dont have all the answers, the one study that has
my interest currently, is on the effects of MTOR. You see, when mtor activity in the body is high,
autophagy is low. As it is believed that mtor inhibits autophagy, and its high in cells in
a nutrient rich environment, so if you wanted to lower that, nutrient deprivation by calorie
restriction was one idea which we talked about earlier. Since nutrient deprivation decreases
mTOR activity, leading to increased autophagy in one study. But are there other ways to lower
mtor then, arent there any foods I can add into my diet that could help. Well interestingly,
one study found that curcumin, resveratrol, and egcg, which are polyphenols in green tea,
seem to be compounds that may boost the effects of autophagy by downregulating mtor activity. Oh
and here is a list of foods that may help as well. In fact, id be happier to hear your thoughts down
below. You see, Even though autophagy isnt a clear cut harmful or beneficial process
concerning disease prevention or treatment. I am excited where the research takes us especially the
insight we can get to use target autophagy: as a therapy for cancer and other diseases.
Click the subscribe button down below, if you found any value, and ill see you on the next one.