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Myths & Fallacies : "Fasting Upregulates Autophagy"
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The Live Longer Formula is your go-to podcast for cutting through the noise and discovering practical, science-backed strategies to not just add years to your life, but to add life to your years. Hosted by longevity author and functional health practitioner Christian Yordanov, this podcast dives deep into the truths (and myths) behind longevity, health optimization, and addressing chronic health problems.
Each episode offers actionable insights drawn from the host's own research, clinical practice, and personal journey, helping you make informed decisions to restore and enhance your health. Whether you're interested in reducing stress, boosting your energy and mental performance, improving your gut health, or simply looking to optimize your diet and lifestyle, this podcast delivers the tools you need to live a healthier, longer life.
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Transcript
Introduction to Fasting and Autophagy
00:00:01
chrisyzen
High in this segment of myths and fallacies on the how to actually live longer podcast with your host, Christian Ordonov, let's talk about fasting upregulates autophagy. And this is so funny. ah Last year when I was going on some podcasts, talk about my book, how to actually live longer. um I would say all the stuff about fasting. And then at the end of it all, I'd get like a question. This is so hilarious. What about autophagy?
00:00:30
chrisyzen
It was so funny. But what about autophagy though? Like I heard autophagy is good and stuff. And um yeah, so what is autophagy?
Understanding Autophagy: Self-Eating Explained
00:00:39
chrisyzen
So the name autophagos, auto means self and phagos comes from Greek to eat. So self eating. So you are self cannibalizing in essence. And that's good because
00:00:58
chrisyzen
live longer? I don't know. Let's see, what is autophagy? So autophagy, this is this is from research now I'm citing, I cite some some of the research in the book. um ah Basically, autophagy is is a process that's active in all cells and can be upregulated in response to stress or nutrient deprivation.
00:01:20
chrisyzen
And there's another ah quote from ah the same paper. It is generally accepted that autophagy functions as a mechanism to survive cellular stresses like nutrient deprivation. Okay.
00:01:37
chrisyzen
So what does that mean? If you deprive your body of nutrition, fast, autophagy increases. It is a survival mechanism that to respond to stress and nutrient deprivation. And nutrient deprivation is one of the sort of most primordial stresses that we we would have learned that probably evolved um or adapted to ah survive.
Autophagy and Cellular Component Degradation
00:02:04
chrisyzen
So basically autophagy degrades cellular components that can be you know sacrificed for the greater good or or that are dysfunctional in some way. So here's the thing that here is the sort of the red herring, the myth, the fallacy, the BS that is thrown away. So we are told when you fast,
00:02:28
chrisyzen
You upregulate autophagy and on one website where they're shilling the sort of fasting mimicking diet nonsense They call it. What do they they say? So autophagy is your hold on.
Selective vs. Bulk Autophagy During Fasting
00:02:42
chrisyzen
What is it? um
00:02:47
chrisyzen
Autophagy, cellular rejuvenation, that is the key to your vibrance, performance, healthy aging and longevity. Now, I don't know if you've ever tried to perform anything when you're fasting.
00:03:03
chrisyzen
ah it's really really hard it's really hard so i'm not sure how that performance maybe you get that after a lot of uh the fasting or after you get a lot of autophagy but so this is how they're marketing it but here's the thing right so if you actually dig a little bit deeper What it turns out is that you have two kinds of autophagy. You have non-selective autophagy and you have selective autophagy. So selective autophagy will degrade specific targets, like damaged organelles in the in the cell, like the mitochondria, lysosomes, endoplasmic reticulum, ribosomes. ribosomes, right? And there's certain a aggregated proteins and stuff like that, right? So that's um what I call it selective autophagy. Then you have the concept of bulk autophagy, also known as non-selective autophagy.
00:04:06
chrisyzen
And that is associated with the indiscriminate engulfment of cytosolic components. So the in this indiscriminate basically ah degradation of components in the cell. And guess what? Guess what? Fasting. Which one do you think it upregulates?
00:04:30
chrisyzen
obviously not a trick question. it ah Fasting up regulates bulk autophagy-selective autophagy. so That kind of makes sense because if you are fasting, you are literally going to die if if the that doesn't change
Effects of Fasting: Fatty Tissue and Lean Mass Breakdown
00:04:47
chrisyzen
for you. right that's That's what happens because fasting is starvation except it's a better marketing term than starve yourself for health. That really makes a lot of sense.
00:04:58
chrisyzen
so you are going to die. You are on a relatively short timeline to death when when you fast or you starve. So what does the body do? It starts to break itself down by upregulating cortisol and other stress hormones start to break down the fatty tissue. But a lot of lean lean mass goes ah very quickly because it's expensive tissue. It's expensive to maintain muscle, right for example.
00:05:28
chrisyzen
So and there's a lot of there's a lot of amino acids in your bones. there There's 35% collagen protein but So there's a lot of you have a big reservoir relatively speaking in your lean tissue your joints Your cartilage basically anything where anything where there's collagenous protein your skin Right, and then you also have your organs and so on and so forth, right? So it makes sense that if you're nutrient-deprived if you're starved and you are going to just start indiscriminately breaking everything down and turning turning things into glucose because you are in survival mode. Your body doesn't care ah about long-term stuff right now. All your body cares is about immediate survival and it will sacrifice anything and everything to that end. That is what fasting, that is the state fasting puts you in.
The Reality of Fasting and Longevity Benefits
00:06:28
chrisyzen
right and we are then taking a leap of faith that after you you you stop fasting and you then you repeat the body builds back better right build back better heard that one before so that is that is a leap of faith now we're entering religion from science science to scientism right because we don't actually in humans at least, we don't have long-term studies like ah over a lifetime or even like 10-20 years, right? We don't have solid evidence that shows fasting will actually improve your outcomes or increase your lifespan. Fasting will
00:07:15
chrisyzen
help laboratory animals live longer because they eat less of the toxic slop like they call lab chow right and they're restricted from eating that poison so that they will do better but in humans there is no so seriously good at evidence right um so autophagy is upregulated even when when you eat certain things apparently even certain carbohydrates like glucose and trehalos and some other ones, they actually can upregulate autophagy. Exercise upregulates autophagy. Autophagy is like a constantly running process in your body that you don't need to
Natural Autophagy vs. Forced Autophagy Through Fasting
00:07:54
chrisyzen
touch. It will it will run
00:07:57
chrisyzen
As and when it is needed right and from what I understand in cancer and certain other disease states Autophagy is increased so I'm not sure this is the kind of thing we want to mess with right the body knows what it's doing that leave the body be and I think in if you if you stop for a second and you think about it instinctively instead of just allowing all the the the marketing behind fasting and autophagy and intermittent fasting and whatever else ketosis if you think of it logically what are we doing now as a society are we truly like starving ourselves to health is this really sort of how deranged we've become or how easily
00:08:42
chrisyzen
socially engineered we've allowed ourselves to be ah to become that by starving our body of the constant need for glucose vitamins minerals amino acids so by removing that we're told that the body actually gets healthier when you're removing that like in I don't I don't you know it doesn't really it doesn't really ring true intuitively if if you kind of just tap into your intuition, does it actually make sense? And think about how you feel when you're fasting. ah If you've ever fasted, it I've tried it and you feel horrible because stress hormones make you feel horrible.
Psychological and Spiritual Effects of Fasting
00:09:25
chrisyzen
And now some people say, I feel amazing. I feel so energized and so um amazing. But the thing is ah that could be straight up mania because we know that in like bipolar mania, this kind of psychosis,
00:09:38
chrisyzen
that there's an upregulation ah in some of these stress hormones like cortisol, serotonin, and even estrogen, right? Which is what what which is what happens in stress states and fasting is one of the most stressful states to be in, right? So if you feel amazing, like a lot of people tell me, you know, I'm doing really well, like ah intermittent fasting one meal a day. Okay, if you're like 25 or 30, you can do that for a while longer.
00:10:03
chrisyzen
ah But you just you just speeding up your accelerating your aging and your degeneration that way even though you don't feel it right now right so those folks that feel so amazing that could be just the the stress hormones so giving you a buzz because you know the the term like adrenaline junkie.
00:10:21
chrisyzen
um the runners high right so the the stress and the endorphins and the adrenaline can give you this sort of elated feeling but personally this is just a personal thing I really believe When you fast, when you're dying of starvation, which is what a fasting would eventually, sorry, this is turning really morbid here, I didn't mean to, and I'm running over the 10 minute period. But look, here's what I think. I think when you when you're about to die of starvation, it's probably ah somewhat of a defensive mechanism. The body will start to probably
00:10:58
chrisyzen
the ah The upregulation of serotonin, serotonin is quite similar to DMT, dimethotryptamine, because serotonin is 5-hydroxytryptophan, so there's kind of you know ah similarities in the molecules. I think the body probably starts to make these molecules that are somewhat hallucinogenic.
00:11:18
chrisyzen
ah And that probably helps you, helps to ease the transition out of this realm as you expire into the next realm. And that's, that's why, you know, people like, oh, I did a 10 day fast and near the end of it, I was like having all of these spiritual experiences and all this stuff. and That's probably just the hallucinations caused by the serotonin and the the sort of the body thinks it's going to die. So we might as well feel as good as possible to ease the transition.
Critique of Autophagy as a Buzzword
00:11:46
chrisyzen
So fasting, autophagy, buzzwords, ah just understand that autophagy is just another buzzword, red herring in the zeitgeist right now that is really leading people astray. like To starve yourself, to chase autophagy, to upregulate the process,
00:12:11
chrisyzen
that is up-regulated when you starve yourself. So to starve yourself to up-regulate the process that is up-regulated when you starve yourself. That is kind of the the logic here. It doesn't make too much sense once you understand what it is and the fact that it's always running and even certain carbohydrates and exercise and other sort of stresses already are up-regulating and down-regulating, whatever else.
Conclusion: Balanced Eating Over Extreme Fasting
00:12:33
chrisyzen
So this is running on its own. You don't need to force the issue.
00:12:37
chrisyzen
Just eat clean, real food, eat well, don't overeat, don't go too long without eating because that upregulates stress hormones so and you will be quite alright, I guarantee you. And just to kind of qualify that, I guarantee you, um if you don't extend your life by 10 or 20 years, at least listening to my advice, your money back is guaranteed. Okay? So thanks for tuning into this segment and I'll see you on the next one.