Autophagy

Auto­pha­gy lite­ral­ly means ‚self-eating‘ and descri­bes a natu­ral recy­cling pro­cess within the cell. Dama­ged pro­te­ins and cell com­pon­ents are bro­ken down and their buil­ding blocks reu­sed. The 2016 Nobel Pri­ze in Medi­ci­ne was award­ed for unco­ve­ring the under­ly­ing mechanisms.

Appli­ca­ti­on

Auto­pha­gy keeps cells func­tion­al and pre­vents the build-up of dama­ge, such as defec­ti­ve mito­chon­dria. It decli­nes with age, which lon­ge­vi­ty rese­arch links to various age-rela­ted dise­a­ses. In the skin, it helps defend against UV dama­ge and sup­ports the rene­wal of skin cells. It is sti­mu­la­ted by fac­tors such as breaks from eating and phy­si­cal activity.

Good to know

Whe­ther inter­mit­tent fas­ting or sup­ple­ments such as sper­mi­di­ne influence auto­pha­gy in humans stron­gly enough to chan­ge the skin or life­span mea­sur­a­b­ly has not been ade­qua­te­ly shown. Much of the data comes from cell and ani­mal stu­dies. In addi­ti­on, auto­pha­gy can­not be mea­su­red direct­ly in ever­y­day life.