Benefits of Fasting-Autophagy

What is autophagy?

Autophagy is the body’s system of cleansing itself. Autophagy occurs while fasting over a certain length of time where the body has burned through stored sugar. If you have eaten recently the body will not enter a state of autophagy.

Mouse Study

A 2017 German mouse dietary study formed 2 groups of mice. One group was the control group and the other group was the every other day group (EOD). The control group ate normal meals every day. The EOD group ate every other day. It was determined that the EOD mice lived longer. The average was 102 days longer. This was up to 12-20% longer for the longest living EOD mouse.

The study did notice that aging was not delayed necessarily but tumor growth (neoplastic disease) was delayed by a significant amount of time. The was no general slowing of the aging process.

The study had to be systematic in order to produce accurate results. There was a large scale analysis of more than 200 parameters. These included physiological, cellular and molecular measurements of more than 20 different tissues from both groups. The dietary schedule was done for 30 days prior to taking measurements of tissue to allow for EOD to take effect.

The study determined that older EOD mice desired to explore freely while in a new environment for a 20 minute period versus the control group mice.

EOD Mice Body Mass

The EOD mice were lower in body mass (total fat lean mass). This was consistent with all age EOD mice compared to the control group.

The Thalamus and Water Fasting

With the aging of mice (and men) inclusions in the thalamus develop. This means in some cases the onset of progressive dementia, behavioral changes, hypersomnia and slow dominant posterior EEG rhythms which show in CNS dysfunction often related to certain patients with myotonic dystrophy. Myotonic dystrophy is the inhibition of normal muscle growth. Myotonic dystrophy is an inherited disease.

The Thyroid and Water Fasting

Fasting every other day in mice shows to help reduce thyroid follicle size. Aging-related changes in the thyroid involve increasing follicle size and decreasing colloid resorption. This is important because determine decreasing thyroid activity by testing colloid function.

Intermittent Fasting and Adrenals

If you have an adrenal weakness it is not necessarily bad to do an IF. If you have hypoglycemia you may notice symptoms of low blood sugar. Adrenals just do their job and function normally by increasing output. Adrenal fatigue will be improved because IF removes inflammation. For pre-existing low blood sugar doing an IF just because you finally eat and feel better does not mean the IF was not successful. Just start fasting slowly.

The mice who ate EOD had their tests determine a decrease in adrenal gland lipofuscin deposits than the control group. Without going into great detail at the moment lipofuscin increases the risk of certain diseases.

Intermittent Fasting Results in Mice

With the clear result that eating every other day extended mice lifespans up to 20 percent, it is encouraging. It is not clear but the life extension noted might be the result of life-limiting pathologies. This could be a lack of cancer in the EOD mice group.

The delayed onset of disorders that limit natural mice lifespans seems to account for the longer life. Unfortunately, the mouse study did not show a delay in the aging process for the eat every other day mice group.

EOD reduced tumor growth in many mice prone to cancerous tumors. Not only that, it was clear that there were reductions of plasma glucose, triglyceride and insulin concentrations.

Intermittent Fasting and Cortisol

When eating carbohydrates the body breaks it down to glucose. Glucose is stored in the liver and muscles. The glucose causes the pancreas to release insulin. This causes stress in the body. This stimulates the body to produce cortisol a stress hormone.

When stressed out the body produces cortisol. But when a person is in ketosis by fasting it can elevate cortisol which recruits protein to produce sugar. Stress causes the body to break down proteins into sugar. It is important to keep stress to a minimum.

Cortisol is made by the adrenal gland near the kidney. When people get stressed out they have a problem turning off cortisol. The adrenal gland only has an on switch. It adapts the body to stressed-out states.

Over time the stress is cumulative and collects over time. The adrenal gland does not have an off switch. Many times autoimmune diseases follow a personal loss that causes severe stress.

If you cannot tolerate stress and things get to you easily your adrenal glands are stuck in fight or flight.

How Do You Turn Adrenal Glands Off?

You can use certain techniques on the nervous system. A couple of examples to help are acupressure and massages can really help the nervous system.

Intermittent Fasting in Humans

There have been several short term trials of intermittent fasting in humans over the last 10 years. The results closely match the mouse study with the EOD group results.

The studies are not conclusive in the long term with humans obviously because of the life span of humans is much longer. This limited the measures to a more acute focus.

The fairly clear conclusion is that the mice living longer was due to the delay in molecular, cellular, and physiological diseases and disorders. Unfortunately, aging was not prolonged just disease by EOD.