Cellular Clean-Up: How Autophagy Keeps You Young and Healthy

October 13, 2024

by Cathe Friedrich

Just as you clean up your home to clear out debris and things you no longer need, cells do this too. The term for the mechanism cells use to clean up is autophagy. What you might not know is cellular autophagy plays a key role in keeping your cells healthy. When cells go into “autophagy” mode, they recycle damaged components that make cellular function less efficient. It’s your body’s way of getting rid of old stuff that no longer works, just as you do when you house clean. Scientists now believe that autophagy may play a key role in health and longevity.

The Science Behind Autophagy

Some scientists think of autophagy as the cells recycling system. Your body has its own internal schedule for cleaning up and recycling via autophagy. During this clean-up, the housekeeping mechanism inside your cells will remove damaged proteins, cellular organelles, and some infectious agents, such as viruses and bacteria. But it might ramp up its schedule even more if you’re under significant stress, injured, ill, or starving and need extra energy and resources. Out with the old to make room for the new!

There are three primary types of autophagy:

Macroautophagy: The most common form, where large portions of cytoplasm and cellular debris are enclosed in double-membraned vesicles called autophagosomes and then delivered to lysosomes for degradation.
Microautophagy: In this type, the lysosome engulfs small portions of cytoplasm or cellular organelles directly.
Chaperone-Mediated Autophagy (CMA): In CMA, a specialized protein chaperone helps selectively transport specific proteins to the lysosome for breakdown.

How Autophagy Benefits Your Body

Your cells need autophagy for maintenance and renewal. Conducting this function efficiently keeps your cells functional. According to early research, it may also protect against degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, and cancer. Autophagy also supports metabolic health. So, you want your cells to engage in autophagy often. Are there ways to increase autophagy or cellular clean-up?

Factors That Increase Autophagy

According to science there are ways to enhance this process. Let’s look at some lifestyle factors that support healthy autophagy:

Intermittent Fasting

You’re familiar with the concept of intermittent fasting. As you know fasting is going without food for varying periods of time. Intermittent fasting uses several schedules. One is the 16/8 intermittent fasting schedule. With this approach, you eat during an 8-hour window and fast for the other 16 hours. You can do this by eating an early dinner and skipping breakfast when you wake up the next morning. Another is a 24 hour fast. You refrain from eating for a full 24 hours. There’s also alternate-day fasting where you eat one day and fast the next. Any of these strategies trigger autophagy, as cells kick into autophagy after 12 to 16 hours of fasting.

Caloric Restriction

Another approach that triggers autophagy is calorie restriction, eating fewer calories than your body needs for maintenance. Science shows that reducing calories 20 to 30% below maintenance triggers autophagy and cellular repair. At least in animals, reducing calories by 20 to 30% over prolonged periods of time improves metabolic health and extends lifespan. Unfortunately, it’s harder to prove in humans as these studies are difficult to carry out. In animal studies, calorie restriction also reduces oxidative stress.

Exercise

Exercise also triggers autophagy. When you launch into a workout, it stresses your cells. This low-grade stress and the mild damage it causes, like micro muscle tears, sets in motion autophagy. You can get these benefits from a variety of exercise modalities, including cycling, running, high-intensity interval training, and resistance training. Of these, high-intensity interval training appears to be the most effective at triggering cellular autophagy.

Ketogenic Diet

Ketogenic diets have skyrocketed in popularity. People adopt them for various reasons – for blood sugar control and to lose weight are popular ones. But there’s also evidence that eating a ketogenic diet triggers autophagy. Ketogenic diets are low carbohydrate, high fat diets that force your body to produce ketone bodies for energy. This lowers blood sugar and insulin and activates an energy sensor called AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) that is beneficial for health. Plus, the ketogenic diet reduces oxidative stress and inflammation, both of which are associated with aging and chronic diseases.

Heat and Cold Exposure

Since temperature extremes are a form of stress, they can turn on cellular autophagy too. Exposing your body to cold, via cold showers or cryotherapy, and heat, via saunas, gives cellular repair a boost. For example, when you hop into a sauna, the heat activates heat shock proteins that stress the cell and cause it to repair. One study found that cells exposed to heat at a temperature of 40 degrees C. (104 degrees F.) triggered the release of proteins involved in autophagy.

Nutrient-Sensing Pathway Inhibitor

Certain foods and nutrients can turn on cellular autophagy pathways too. One such nutrient is resveratrol, a polyphenol with antioxidant activity. You can get resveratrol from grapes, berries, and red wine or take it in a more concentrated form as a supplement. Curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric, is another antioxidant and anti-inflammatory that activates autophagy. Finally, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) in green tea and green tea extract stimulates cells in such a way that it turns on cellular repair.

Conclusion

Now you know why autophagy is so important and how you can maximize it through lifestyle. Talk to your doctor before adopting any of the above lifestyle habits to make sure they’re safe for you. So, harness the power of our cellular clean-up crew for a healthier future.

References:

Mizushima, N., & Komatsu, M. (2011). Autophagy: Renovation of cells and tissues. Cell, 147(4), 728-741.
Levine, B., & Kroemer, G. (2008). Autophagy in the pathogenesis of disease. Cell, 132(1), 27-42.
Madeo, F., Zimmermann, A., Maiuri, M. C., & Kroemer, G. (2015). Essential role for autophagy in life span extension. The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 125(1), 85-93.
Longo, V. D., & Mattson, M. P. (2014). Fasting: Molecular mechanisms and clinical applications. Cell Metabolism, 19(2), 181-192.
He, C., & Klionsky, D. J. (2009). Regulation mechanisms and signaling pathways of autophagy. Annual Review of Genetics, 43, 67-93.
Rubinsztein, D. C., Mariño, G., & Kroemer, G. (2011). Autophagy and aging. Cell, 146(5), 682-695.
Egan, D. F., Shackelford, D. B., Mihaylova, M. M., Gelino, S., Kohnz, R. A., Mair, W., … & Sabatini, D. M. (2011). Phosphorylation of ULK1 (hATG1) by AMP-activated protein kinase connects energy sensing to mitophagy. Science, 331(6016), 456-461.
Paoli, A., Rubini, A., Volek, J. S., & Grimaldi, K. A. (2013). Beyond weight loss: A review of the therapeutic uses of very-low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diets. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 67(8), 789-796.
Kroemer, G., & Levine, B. (2008). Autophagic cell death: The story of a misnomer. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, 9(12), 1004-1010.
Powers, S. K., & Jackson, M. J. (2008). Exercise-induced oxidative stress: Cellular mechanisms and impact on muscle force production. Physiological Reviews, 88(4), 1243-1276.
Condello M, Pellegrini E, Caraglia M, Meschini S. Targeting Autophagy to Overcome Human Diseases. Int J Mol Sci. 2019 Feb 8;20(3):725. doi: 10.3390/ijms20030725. PMID: 30744021; PMCID: PMC6387456.