Nobel Prize-winning Japanese scientist says fasting people live longer

In 2016, the Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi of the University of Tokyo, won the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine for a study that led to important discoveries about autophagy, the mechanism by which cells digest parts of themselves.

During his research, he found that periods of hunger positively influence cell renewal and help to slow down the aging process.

We decided to research the concept of cellular autophagocytosis a little further and why Yoshinori’s work is one of the most revealing scientific evidence regarding the already relatively well-known intermittent fasting.

Yes, the process of using and recycling the unnecessary parts of cells is called autophagy. The term that gave its name to the process comes from the Greek and can be translated as ‘self nutrition’, or autophagocytosis. With the help of autophagy, cells avoid unnecessary organelles and dead and damaged cells. In the future, cells that have already fulfilled their duty will be used to build new ones.

This process was first observed in the 1950s. But it was not until the 1990s that Ohsumi, with a series of innovative experiments involving yeasts (fungi), managed to reveal the genes and mechanisms that govern it and demonstrate that similar machinery is used by human cells.

In general, autophagy is responsible for body’s ability to renew, the fight against infections and the expulsion of toxins. Problems in autophagy processes are related to different diseases such as cancer, type II diabetes and Alzheimer’s. It is known that, when suffering an infection, the cell tries to ‘digest’ the bacteria using the same mechanisms and proteins that renew them.

By influencing the processes of autophagy in cancer cells, it is possible that the body receives them damaged, eliminating them internally without chemotherapy. Accelerating the cell renewal processes of the elderly to fight the negative consequences of aging is another good news.

During the period without food, the level of glucose in the blood decreases, which means that the production of insulin, responsible for sending it to the tissues, also decreases. For our organism, this means that the increase in nutritive substances has been paralyzed, making it necessary to change the survival mode, when the production of glucagon, an important hormone in carbohydrate metabolism, begins. One of the functions of this hormone is to stimulate autophagy.

The positive effect of hunger has been known for a long time. In the Bible, the cases of the 40-day famine of Jesus and Moses are described. In the religion of ancient Iran, you had to go without food for 50 days, and even today, Muslims observe dietary restrictions in the holy month of Ramadan.

herodotus wrote that the Egyptians ‘used’ hunger for systematic recovery for 3 days a month. Socrates and Plato, Byron, Voltaire, Linnaeus, Milton, Montaigne, Newton, Rousseau and Tolstoy also did this: refusing food regularly.

By refusing food for a long time, metabolism actually slows down. When a person decides not to eat anything for a period of 12 to 72 hours, the opposite happens, metabolism accelerates. This is related to the production of the stress hormone called noradrenalinewhich is responsible for the feeling of hunger.

The same is true of losing muscle mass. Research says that by feeling hungry in a short period of time to receive energy from the fat mass, the growth hormone level increases. Two other functions are anabolic and anti-catabolic, whose objective is not to allow the destruction of muscle mass.

This must be done very carefully and always under the supervision of a doctor. On average, to burn the carbohydrates consumed during the day and preserved in the form of glycogen, it takes 8 to 12 hours. Only after that do the autophagy processes begin in the body. This means that any period of famine needs last more than 12 hours.

feel hungry for more than 3 days can cause considerable damage to the body, as the cells do not receive the necessary set of microelements, which can cause a weakness in immunity and a worsening in the functioning of internal organs.

One of the most famous is called the ‘5/2′ diet. This feeding system was invented by the British Michael Mosley. In 2012, a movie was released that talks about his research on calorie reduction. The diet works as follows: 5 days eating at normal times and 2 days with a calorie reduction: only 500 calories for women and 600 calories for men, in up to two meals.

Journalist Martin Berkhan has proposed the ’16/8′ eating system, which dictates a 16-hour period of starvation, in addition to training during the week on an empty stomach. Ori Hofmelker maintains similar criteria in his ’20/4′ diet, in which the person eats for only 4 hours. During the rest of the day the person can eat only nuts and nuts.

What is your opinion on this topic?

Once again, we want to make it clear that before starting any diet like the ones we’ve described above, it’s very important that you talk to your doctor.