Autophagy is a process done by all cells to eliminate toxins responsible for your aging. It promotes cell recycling and gives them new nutrients. Therefore, it slows down the aging process of cells.
The autophagy process is essential for cells to live longer and can happen when the cell has little oxygen or little food. It can also occur to eliminate defective cell organelles.
The word can be translated as "eat oneself" and derives from the union of two Greek terms self (me and phage (eat).
It was first used in 1963 by the Belgian biochemist Christian de Duve (1917-2013) to describe the cell renewal process. The biochemist received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1974 for having mapped the function of lysosomes, which participate in autophagy.
How does autophagy happen?
The cellular autophagy process occurs with the action of lysosomes (organelles responsible for cellular digestion), which help cells to degrade and digest parts of the cytoplasm.
The lysosomes approach the cell and surround it, forming the autophagic vacuole (or autophagosome), an enzyme-rich membranous pocket.
Next, the autophagic vacuole joins the lysosomes, forming the autophagolysis (or autolysosome) to end the cell digestion process. In other words, it is the lysosomes that make the cell able to digest parts of itself.
The lysosomes may eventually rupture, which dumps digestion enzymes directly into the cytoplasm, causing the cell to die. It is a process of cell self-destruction, called autolysis.
Positive autolysis (or apoptosis) is also a process of cell death, but it is programmed death. It happens when cells need to give way to healthier ones.
The organism performs apoptosis to prevent unhealthy cells from causing damage (such as an increased propensity to develop disease) or to ensure the evolution of species.
What is the relationship between fasting and autophagy?
There are scientific studies to identify the relationship between fasting and autophagy, to understand how cell renewal happens after controlled fasting.
These researches indicate that fasting could activate the autophagy process, increasing the healthy life of cells and decreasing the possibility of developing some diseases.
But while studies suggest that fasting can improve the body's health, the hypothesis has yet to was well clarified, since the experiments carried out so far have been done only with mice.
See more about the meaning of fast.
Autophagy in cancer treatment
In recent years, autophagy has been studied as a possible treatment for cancer.
Researchers have developed researches that consider autophagy to help reduce some types of tumors in early stages, acting in the destruction of cancer cells.
In 2016, the Japanese biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi he received the Nobel Prize for his research on autophagy. Despite being known since the 1960s, the autophagy process is still not fully known and the biologist was able to identify some of the genes involved.
The discovery is considered fundamental for understanding the total mechanism of this cellular process and may, in the future, help in the treatment of diseases such as cancer.
