By Lisa Freeman
At the cellular level, autophagy (Latin for “self-eating”), is the body’s natural recycling program — separating the good from the bad, keeping the former and scrapping the latter. Your cells create membranes that find dead, diseased or damaged cells (or cellular components), gobble them up, strip them for parts and use the remaining molecules for energy or to make new cell parts.
Helping to clear your body of toxins and problem cells (cancerous and precancerous growths, for example), Autophagy can also stop metabolic dysfunction that might otherwise cause obesity or diabetes. It acts as a quality control mechanism and turns out to be pivotal for counteracting the negative consequences of aging. Sometimes called “cellular pruning,” it’s believed to promote heart and skin health, boost metabolism and energy, protect against neurodegenerative mental disease and offer antiviral and antibacterial benefits.
Thanks to Japanese biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi (who won a Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking research in 2016), scientists are learning more about the specific genes and mechanisms that regulate autophagy. As a red-blooded American woman always keen to discover new ways to look and feel better (and younger), naturally, I wanted to find out if there are ways to stimulate or accelerate autophagy, Good news: there are! (Reminder: I am not a doctor, you should consult yours before making any big changes to your diet or exercise habits.)
The benefits of autophagy
Our greatest longevity tool. At the moment, calorie restriction (CR) and fasting are our most potent tools for longevity, at least in animal models (it’s kind of hard to study human longevity). The only known drug that extends lifespan, rapamycin, acts by inhibiting mTOR.
Protects against chronic diseases. Nearly every modern disease including obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease and neurodegenerative diseases involves some sort of defect in autophagy. I’m certain that, if we can figure out how to dose fasting, disease rates would plummet.
Improves mitochondrial health. Fasting enhances mitochondrial biogenesis (increase in mitochondrial mass) and function (the efficiency with which energy is created). The healthier your mitochondria, the healthier you are!
Reduced inflammation. Autophagy regulates the development and activity of inflammatory cells and secretion of signaling cells called cytokines. Proper autophagic activity is critical for a healthy immune system.
7 WAYS TO BOOST AUTOPHAGY
1. Choose the right foods and supplements
Coffee, green tea, turmeric, ginger, Ceylon cinnamon, ginseng, garlic, certain mushrooms (chaga and reishi), pomegranate and elderberries are all known to increase autophagy. Others that might seem less familiar — such as bergamot, berberine, resveratrol and MCT oil — are often taken in the form of a supplement. (A good omega-3 capsule is also helpful.)
2. Fasting, intermittent fasting and almost fasting Fasting is something I’d been doing since high school for sports performance (volleyball) so I was thrilled to learn that it is one of the best ways to kick autophagy into high gear. Why? A dip in available nutrients signals cells to get more efficient (dump low-performing parts to recycle and rebuild new cells). If you think about how prehistoric humans evolved and survived when the next meal was never guaranteed, fasting was just part of life. During the time their bodies were not digesting food (whether for several hours or even days on end), cells were able to repair themselves and get more resilient to ready the body to pounce when that next meal — often a wild animal — came around. So our bodies were literally built for this. Not eating, or drastically restricting caloric intake, for a period of time has been shown to induce autophagy.But how long do you have to fast to get the benefits in your body? Some experts suggest a daily 16/8 intermittent fasting plan (fast for 16 hours and then eat all of your meals within an eight-hour window). Good news is, if you’re a person who usually skips breakfast, you might already be doing this. Say you finish dinner at 8 p.m. (no midnight snacking!), all you have to do is wait until noon or later to eat lunch the next day. You fasted! The 5:2 method is eating normally for five days of the week and fasting (or limiting calories to 500 per day) on the other two days of the week. Alternate day fasting follows the same rules, only the fasting (or calorie restriction) is every other day.
According to biologist and fasting expert Professor Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, the best way to really clear out harmful toxins and reset your immune system is to do a three- or five-day fast, even if you only do it once or twice a year. Recognizing that might be terrifying to the average person, Longo developed what he calls a fast-mimicking diet (FMD), which basically tricks your body into a fasted state (giving you the health benefits) while still allowing you to consume about 1000 calories a day.
