Today, we explore a cellular-cleansing process that can make you look and feel younger, while enjoying a longer, healthier life! PLUS: You'll discover three primary ways to dial up the process (and the foods that stop it cold).
The ketogenic lifestyle not only promotes rapid fat loss, it can also provide increased energy, greater mental clarity and reduced risk for disease.
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Today's Article
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Autophagy: The Little-Known Key to Health & Longevity
Your body is in a constant state of renewal. Every second you are breaking down old cells and creating new ones. New proteins are formed as others are expended.
When a cell reaches the end of its useful life, it undergoes a process called apoptosis (or programmed cell death). This is an orderly process to rid the body of cells which are too old, damaged or mutated for repair. The cell is broken down into component parts, then packaged up for “garbage collection” by various immune cells.
But there are other times when only certain parts of the cell need to be replaced – like replacing a dead battery or broken belt in a car.
This process is called autophagy – derived from the Greek auto (self) and phagein (to eat). In other words, autophagy is a metabolic process where old, weak and broken cellular structures are repaired, recycled and renewed through a form of self-cannibalization.(2)
And when it comes to anti-aging and detoxification…
Autophagy is Quite Literally the Fountain of Youth!
This orderly metabolic renewal process uses “garbage-disposal” structures called lysosomes.
These organelles break down and reuse our cellular parts. The component parts are then converted to amino acids – the building blocks of proteins – and then transported to other parts of the body and used to rejuvenate cells and rid the body of junk.(3,4)
As this internal “spring cleaning” removes clutter at the cellular level, aging is literally reversed. What is old becomes new again.
But the benefits of autophagy go well beyond looking and feeling younger…
Autophagy also helps destroy pathogens, while building newer and stronger immune cells. And a stronger immune system not only means better resistance to infections, but to cancer as well. In addition to improving surveillance against mutated cells, autophagy protects the integrity of the cell’s nucleus (which prevents cancer cells from forming in the first place).(5,6,7)
Research also shows that autophagy helps reduce inflammation and insulin resistance, as well as neurodegenerative disease (like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s).(8,9,10)
Dr. Colin Champ, who is a board-certified radiation oncologist, professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and author of the book Misguided Medicine, says:
"Think of it as your body's innate recycling program. Autophagy makes us more efficient machines to get rid of faulty parts, stop cancerous growths, and stop metabolic dysfunction like obesity and diabetes."
So, now that we’ve covered how autophagy works – and how it works to improve your health – let’s discover how you can turn on this process at will (and, perhaps even more important, how to ensure you don’t turn off this disease fighting, detoxifying, anti-aging process)…
The Foods that Halt Cellular Detoxification
The primary factors that shut down autophagy are the consumption of dietary carbohydrates and the subsequent production of the hormone insulin.(11,12,13)
That means those smoothies, quinoa bowls, fresh-pressed juices you find at the so-called “detox” websites are actually very adept at turning off your deepest cellular detoxification process. The same goes for the honey- and date-sweetened desserts on all the Paleo Blogs.
You should also be careful to avoid excessive protein, as protein can be converted to glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis. Studies have also show that the amino acid leucine, in particular, stops autophagy.(14)
Of course, this doesn’t mean you should restrict protein to the same extent that you might restrict carbs. But it is important to understand that a high-protein diet can still trigger a strong insulin response in some people and dampens the effects of autophagy.
Now, let’s explore how to flip on the switch for your internal housekeeping…
Three Keys to Activating Autophagy
The primary driver for autophagy is fasting.
So how long do you need to fast?
Autophagy occurs in varying degrees in different tissues. In general, when your blood sugar and insulin levels are low, you will induce autophagy. Therefore, following a “16/8” intermittent fasting plan can be very effective at initiating this process on a daily basis. That would mean you fast for 16 hours each day and eat within an eight-hour window.
Many people follow an “eating window” that is even more compressed. They consume their meals during a four-hour window and fast during the remainder.
However, it is extended fasts – 36 hours and beyond – which provide the greatest benefits of autophagy. In fact, many doctors now believe that a quarterly water fast of three to five days is one of the best things you can possibly do (apart from maintaining a healthy daily diet) to improve your longevity and disease resistance.
If we use the housekeeping analogy, shorter intermittent fasting cycles are like a regular cleaning. Whereas a three-day fast (and beyond) provides the deepest cellular cleansing.
A Ketogenic Diet: The Feasting “Hack” that Activates Autophagy
While fasting is a highly valuable health tool with a long list of benefits, most people would like to tap into the benefits of autophagy – and still enjoy their juicy grass-fed ribeye!
Enter the keto diet…
The ketogenic diet – which is rich in healthy fats, low in carbohydrates and low to moderate in protein – is a way to biochemically mimic the effects of fasting. The keto diet activates lysosomes, those garbage-disposal structures that help break down old and faulty proteins.
It also produces ketone bodies. These are not only a very efficient and clean burning fuel source, but they also switch on a mechanism called Chaperone Mediated Autophagy (CMA). This process selectively recycles cellular junk.
And all you have to do to initiate the process is to avoid carbs.(15)
Quoting Dr. Colin Champ again:
“Ketosis is like an autophagy hack. You get a lot of the same metabolic changes and benefits of fasting without actually fasting.”
Finally, there is a third way to induce autophagy…
Exercise-Activated Autophagy
In animal studies, researchers found that acute exercise turns on autophagy in skeletal and cardiac muscle cells. It also stimulates autophagy in the liver and pancreas (where insulin is made), recycling and renewing these important metabolic cells.(16)
Another study, published in the journal Nature, showed that autophagy turns on after just 30 minutes of exercise. However, it plateaued after 80 minutes of exercise. This supports the notion that shorter-duration, higher-intensity exercise is preferable to long-duration “chronic” cardio.
Feast & Fast: Striking the Perfect Ancestral Balance
Our understanding of autophagy is still in its infancy. But like most things in life, it is about balance. In fact, too much or too little autophagy can make us sick.(17)
But there’s good evidence that that the stress of autophagy is something that humans are quite adept at handling. Dr. Champ says:
“It’s our ancestral and evolutionary response to dealing with feast and famine in times of stress. Since a lot of these things would kill us, like starvation and exercise, it only makes sense that after millions of years we adapted those mechanisms to make them positive.”
For optimum health, adopt the natural cycle our ancestors enjoyed. Enjoy regular cycles of “feasting” and “fasting” to allow for cellular growth during eating… and cellular cleansing during fasting.
To Your Health,
Kelley Herring
Healing Gourmet
P.S. Want to learn more about the benefits of the ketogenic diet AND how to leverage the mighty power of autophagy and ketones to achieve optimal health (and thrive in life)?
REFERENCES
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4. Mizushima N, Levine B: Autophagy in mammalian development and differentiation. Nat Cell Biol 12:823-830, 2010
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6. http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/66/19/9349.long
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10. Hara T, Nakamura K, Matsui M, et al: Suppression of basal autophagy in neural cells causes neurodegenerative disease in mice. Nature 441:885-889, 2006
11. Baena M, et al. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta. Fructose supplementation impairs rat liver autophagy through mTORC activation without inducing endoplasmic reticulum stress. 2015 Feb;1851(2):107-16.
12. Liu, H, et al. The Journal of Biological Chemistry. Hepatic Autophagy Is Suppressed in the Presence of Insulin Resistance and Hyperinsulinemia. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M109.033936
13. Ribeiro M, López de Figueroa P, Blanco FJ, Mendes AF, Caramés B. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. Insulin decreases autophagy and leads to cartilage degradation. 2016 Apr;24(4):731-9.
14. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20844186
15. Finn PF, Dice JF: Ketone Bodies Stimulate Chaperone-mediated Autophagy. Journal of Biological Chemistry 280:25864-25870, 2005
16. He C, Bassik MC, Moresi V, et al: Exercise-induced BCL2-regulated autophagy is required for muscle glucose homeostasis. Nature 481:511-515, 2012
17. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5698/990.full
