You've probably heard about the importance of autophagy, but may have wondered what it is
By enhancing autophagy, we can live longer and in better health.
What is autophagy?
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Autophagy is the self-cleansing process that cells use to recycle junk molecules and organelles.
Cells constantly synthesize enzymes and structural molecules, which get damaged in the course of the life of the cell.
To function optimally, cells must break down and recycle these molecules that are past their expiration date and make new ones.
To do this, they use autophagy, a word derived from the Greek for "self-eating".
The term was coined by the Belgian scientist Christian de Duve, who not only got a Nobel Prize for his work on autophagy, but was also named a viscount.
The 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology went to Yoshinori Ohsumi, for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy.
When a cell lacks nutrients, autophagy increases, partly to supply necessary nutrients until a regular supply resumes.
Autophagy is "evolutionarily conserved", which means it occurs in virtually all eukaryotic cells, from yeast to insects to mammals.
How important is autophagy?
It is "essential" for life extension.
That is, every practice or method of life extension known also increases autophagy.
When organisms including humans are young, they're able to upregulate autophagy easily, but this ability declines with aging, resulting in accelerating accumulation of cellular waste.
Rapamycin, the most promising life extension drug, increases autophagy through mTOR inhibition, and this may be a key way in which it fights diseases of aging and increases lifespan.