Autophagy in literal translation means - to eat oneself. This is a real process of our organism, so significant that the Japanese scientist Yoshinori Osumi received the Nobel Prize in 2016 for his contribution to the study and disclosure of the functioning of this process.
It has been scientifically proven that autophagy helps the cell to get rid of waste, regenerate the body and lose weight along the way. The science behind autophagy's positive effect on human health.
Autophagy is an evolutionary mechanism in the cell that occurs during periods of fasting, i.e. starvation and which allows the organism to survive by creating energy through recycling.
The word autophagy consists of two words "auto" (self) and "phagia" (eat). It is also called "self-devouring". While this may sound like something you would never want to happen to your body, it is actually beneficial for your health. This is because autophagy is a self-preservation mechanism by which the body can remove dysfunctional, damaged and diseased cells and works to recycle these cells and cleanse the body of toxins.
Autophagy promotes survival and adaptation in response to various stresses and toxins accumulated in our cells
The purpose of autophagy is to remove debris and self-regulate metabolism at the cellular level, which will affect the entire body and lead to optimal health. It's simultaneously recycling and cleansing, just like you hit the reset button on your body. In addition, autophagy promotes survival and adaptation in response to various stresses and toxins accumulated in our cells.
And how did everything get serious?
Biologist from the Tokyo Institute of Technology Yoshinori Osumi received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Osumi received the award "for his discoveries of autophagy mechanisms". Osumi proved that through the process of autophagy, cells digest and recycle their constituent parts. A biological cell has many crucial things packed into a small cellular space. Sometimes the parts break down, and sometimes they fall into foreign bodies.
In order for the complicated cellular machinery to remain functional, it must be ensured that the remains, the wastes of the cell, are recycled. This is what autophagy accomplishes. When autophagy does not work, i.e. when it doesn't work, many diseases occur, including type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and cancer. The concept originated in the 1960s, when researchers observed how a cell destroys its own organelles, forming a vesicle that contains the degraded material and transports it to recycling compartments within the cell, called lysosomes. For the next 30 years, however, autophagy remained poorly understood, as researchers were unable to set up laboratory experiments to study it.
Autophagy is an evolutionary mechanism in the cell that occurs during periods of fasting, i.e. starvation and which allows the organism to survive by creating energy through recycling
In the XNUMXs, Osumi did a series of experiments using yeast cells that helped him elucidate the mechanisms by which autophagy occurs. It was the first time we understood the sophisticated cell machinery involved in the crucial process that takes place in every complex living cell. Osumi's work sparked a great deal of interest in autophagy. It is now one of the most intensive areas of research in the field of biomedicine. Since then, scientists have learned that there are many types of autophagy. Macroautophagy is involved in breaking down large parts of the cell, such as organelles. Microphagy is responsible for smaller cellular parts, such as unnecessary floating particles in the cell and xenophagy for breaking down bacteria or viruses.
Scientists have learned that there are many types of autophagy, macroautophagy is involved in breaking down large parts of the cell, such as organelles
Autophagy is key to understanding aging, leading to the possible prevention of a group of diseases that kill most people. The ability to intervene with autophagy on the precise ways a cell works could help people live healthier and longer lives. This is why Ohsumi's work is particularly important for medicine in the 21st century.
Scientists have found that fasting for 12 to 24 hours triggers autophagy, and autophagy is thought to be one of the reasons fasting is associated with longevity. There is a large body of research that links intermittent fasting with better blood sugar control, reduced inflammation, weight loss, increased immunity and improved brain function.
Oshumi's research provides answers to some of the "how?" questions of these researches. Physical activity can also induce autophagy in some cells, allowing cells to begin the process of repair and renewal.
It has been scientifically proven that autophagy helps the cell to get rid of waste, regenerate the body and lose weight along the way
Sporadic short-term fasts, driven by religious and spiritual beliefs, are common to many cultures and have been practiced for centuries, but scientific analysis has only now explained what happens at the cellular level during fasting. Some published studies have shown that short-term food restriction causes a dramatic appearance of autophagy in cortical brain neurons. A short period of food restriction, i.e. fasting, can induce autophagy activation in CNS neurons, which may have clinical relevance. As mentioned above, disruption of autophagy can cause neurodegenerative diseases, and activation of autophagy can have a neuroprotective effect.
What are the benefits of autophagy?
The main benefits of autophagy appear to be anti-aging. Autophagy is the most well-known way the body turns back the clock and creates young new cells. When our cells are under stress, autophagy increases to protect our body, and this helps improve quality of life, reduce disease, and ultimately extend lifespan. During times of starvation, autophagy maintains the body by breaking down damaged cellular material and reusing it for cellular processes in the body.
What activates autophagy?
Starvation is a key activator of autophagy. Remember that glucagon is a type of hormone opposite to insulin. If insulin goes up, glucagon goes down. If insulin drops, glucagon rises. As we eat, insulin rises and glucagon falls. When we don't eat (fast), insulin drops, and glucagon rises. This increase in glucagon stimulates the autophagy process. In fact, fasting raises glucagon and provides the greatest known boost to autophagy.
Fasting is actually far more beneficial than simply stimulating autophagy. It does two good things. By stimulating autophagy, we remove all our old, worthless proteins and cell parts. At the same time, fasting stimulates the secretion of growth hormone, which encourages our body to self-renew and regenerate.
Before you bring in new things, you have to get rid of old things. Consider renovating your kitchen. If you have old 1970s-style lime green cabinets, you need to clean them up before putting in the new ones. Therefore, the process of destruction - removal is as important as the process of creation. If you simply tried to put all the things from the old kitchen in the new cabinets, you couldn't do it without first taking them out, changing the new kitchen and after installing the new kitchen you can put all the things.
So fasting can somehow reverse the aging process by getting rid of old cellular junk and replacing it with new parts.
Autophagy is a highly regulated process. In mammalian cells, total amino acid depletion is a strong signal for autophagy, but the role of individual amino acids is variable. Thus, during autophagy, old cellular components are broken down into amino acid components (the building blocks of proteins).
What happens to these amino acids?
In the early stages of starvation, amino acid levels begin to rise. These autophagy-derived amino acids are thought to be delivered to the liver for gluconeogenesis. They can also be broken down into glucose through the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. A third potential fate of amino acids is to be incorporated into new proteins. The consequences of the accumulation of old proteins can be seen in two main conditions - Alzheimer's disease (AD) and cancer. Alzheimer's disease involves the accumulation of an abnormal protein—either amyloid beta or Tau protein—that damages the brain. Although we don't yet have proof of this from clinical trials, it would make sense that a process like autophagy that has the ability to clean up old protein could prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease.
What turns off autophagy?
Food intake. Glucose, insulin or glucagon depletion, but also proteins exclude this self-cleaning process.
What are the benefits of autophagy?
It removes toxic proteins from cells that are responsible for the onset of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, and the recycling of residual proteins provides the creation of new energy and builds new cells, thus regenerating the body. Autophagy "cleans" the organism from viruses, bacteria, fungi - it has a beneficial effect on the immune system.
Autophagy has received a lot of attention because of the role it can play in preventing or treating cancer.
Autophagy declines as we age, so this means that cells that no longer work, or cells that may be harmful, are allowed to multiply, which is a prerequisite for the development of cancer cells. While all cancers arise from some type of damaged cells, at that point the body is supposed to recognize and remove those cells, often using autophagic processes. That's why some researchers are looking at the possibility that autophagy can reduce the risk of cancer. Although there is no scientific evidence to support this, some studies suggest that many cancer cells can be removed by autophagy.
Autophagy controls the villains of the "cancer cell", recognizes and destroys what has gone wrong and initiates mechanisms for regeneration, which contributes to reducing the risk of cancer. The researchers believe the new research will lead to evidence that will help them target autophagy in cancer therapy.
Dietary changes that can promote autophagy
Note that autophagy literally means “self-eating”. So it makes sense to know that intermittent fasting and ketogenic diets trigger autophagy. Fasting is the most effective way to trigger autophagy.
ketose
Ketosis, a high-fat, low-carb diet has the same benefits as fasting, and it's like a shortcut to trigger the same beneficial metabolic changes at the cellular and metabolic level. By not overloading the body with external loads, the ketogenic diet gives the body a break to focus on its health and correcting all cell errors that occur due to oxidative processes.
In the keto diet, about 75 percent of your daily calories come from fat, and five to ten percent of your calories come from carbohydrates. This shift in caloric sources causes the body to shift its metabolic processes. The body begins to use fat for fuel instead of glucose, which is obtained from carbohydrates. In response to this restriction, your body will begin to produce ketone bodies, which have a number of protective effects. Scientific studies say that ketosis can also cause starvation-induced autophagy, which has neuroprotective functions.
Low glucose occurs in both the keto and autophagy diets and is associated with low insulin and high glucagon levels. And the glucagon level is what triggers autophagy.
When the body lacks sugar during fasting or ketosis, it brings positive stress that awakens reparative processes on the cell.
There is another important factor that can also play a role in inducing autophagy, and that is exercise. According to one study, physical activity through exercise can cause autophagy in organs that are part of the metabolic processes of the regulation of this process. These are muscles, liver, pancreas and fat tissue. Despite its many benefits, autophagy is not for everyone. Patients who have diabetes and use insulin in therapy are not people who should eat according to the principles of autophagy, because hypoglycemia can occur. People who are not recommended to starve and fast are pregnant and lactating women, as well as patients with kidney diseases who must pay attention to protein intake.
The author is a specialist physiatrist - nutritionist
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