The Role of Autophagy in Fasting
It’s important here to understand what autophagy is, and the role it plays in fasting. Briefly, autophagy happens when your body recycles and disposes of old, damaged, or excess cells leaving room for the creation of new and healthy cells. And one of the best ways to activate autophagy is through fasting, due to fasting’s effect as a stressor to the body because it signals the break down of old and damaged cells to create new and healthy cells.
Autophagy is a self-degradative process that is important for balancing sources of energy at critical times in development and in response to nutrient stress. Autophagy also plays a housekeeping role in removing misfolded or aggregated proteins, clearing damaged organelles, such as mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum and peroxisomes, as well as eliminating intracellular pathogens. Thus, autophagy is generally thought of as a survival mechanism, although its deregulation has been linked to non-apoptotic cell death…. Autophagy [also] protects against genome instability and prevents necrosis, giving it a key role in preventing diseases such as cancer, neurodegeneration, cardiomyopathy, diabetes, liver disease, autoimmune diseases and infections.
Additionally, there are other significant therapeutic and anti-aging benefits where fasting and autophagy are concerned:
Fasting stimulates growth hormone, which signals the production of some new snazzy cell parts, giving our bodies a complete renovation. Since it triggers both the breakdown of old cellular parts and the creation of new ones, fasting may be considered one of the most potent anti-aging methods in existence.
Autophagy also plays an important role in the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s is characterized by the abnormal accumulation of amyloid beta (Aß) proteins in the brain, and it’s believed that these accumulations eventually destroy the synaptic connections in the memory and cognition areas. Normally, clumps of Aß protein are removed by autophagy: the brain cell activates the autophagosome, the cell’s internal garbage truck, which engulfs the Aß protein targeted for removal and excretes it, so it can be removed by the blood and recycled into other protein or turned into glucose, depending upon the body’s needs. But in Alzheimer’s disease, autophagy is impaired and the Aß protein remains inside the brain cell, where eventual buildup will result in the clinical syndromes of Alzheimer’s disease.
Cancer is yet another disease that may be a result of disordered autophagy. We’re learning that mTOR plays a role in cancer biology, and mTOR inhibitors have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of various cancers. Fasting’s role in inhibiting mTOR, thereby stimulating autophagy, provides an interesting opportunity to prevent cancer’s development. Indeed, some leading scientists, such as Dr. Thomas Seyfried, a professor of biology at Boston College, have proposed a yearly seven-day water-only fast for this very reason.
Fung, J. & Moore, J. (2016). The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended (p. 153). Victory Belt Publishing.
So, one of the best ways to activate autophagy and do some intracellular housekeeping, is to consider intermittent fasting (eating within specified windows of time), or try an extended fast. To that end, one of the best ways to accomplish that goal is to consider this comprehensive understanding with regard to HOW & WHY fasting contributes to a healthy metabolism by Dr. Jason Fung, who as mentioned, is an international best-selling author on all things related to fasting. Written in multiple parts or sections, you can easily navigate and select the key areas of greatest interest to you.
I also need to add here at this point Megan Ramos, Dr. Fung’s CEO and co-founder of the The Fasting Method, formerly called Intensive Dietary Management (IDM) Program, clinical educator, and researcher. Megan, along with Dr. Jason Fung, believe that both what you eat and when you eat matter. The IDM Program utilizes therapeutic fasting and time restricted eating protocols with their patients to help them reverse their type 2 diabetes and achieve sustainable weight-loss. They encourage their patients to eat real foods and adopt a low-carb lifestyle in addition to the fasting. Here is one of her presentations: Megan Ramos: Practical Fasting: The Use of Therapeutic Fasting in a Clinical Setting
In the end, if you want to increase your energy levels, lose fat, improve your mental clarity, reduce the risk of disease, and improve your overall health as you age, you need to activate autophagy in your body so that your body can recycle and dispose of old, damaged, or excess cells leaving room for the creation of new and healthy cells. And one of the best ways to activate autophagy is through fasting.
And for those of you (& me!) that fall into the maturing woman demographic, I also recommend Dr. Becky Gillaspy with regard to the relationship between insulin resistance & weight gain, and how intermittent fasting can help a great deal in that regard as well.
The Role of Autophagy Without Fasting
Finally, something that may be of great interest to consider before jumping into intermittent or long term fasting, is that you can also activate autophagy without going full-on fasting. Say what?! This website by Dr. David Jockers shares 6 ways to do just that.
