3 replies to this topic

[manofsan]

Okay, this may sound like a stupid question -- but is there any way to have a pro-autophagy diet?
What about a pro-exocytosis diet?

Sure, we know that general Caloric Intake Restriction will increase autophagy and generally lengthen lifespan. But is there a more detailed way to skew your diet, to maximize autophagy while minimizing the negative effects associated with CIR (negative effects which therefore put limits on one's ability to pursue CIR)?

Obviously nobody should Restrict their Caloric Intake so much that they start to starve themselves and damage their health. I've never heard of anorexics breaking records for lifespan. But perhaps if one were to skew one's diet in an optimal fashion, they could obtain maximal autophagy benefits relative to the price their body has to pay.

If autophagy and exocytosis are ultimately supported by proteolytic and vesicle formation mechanisms that eventually get gummed up and break down, then what are the relevant key limiting reagents that we should ensure a healthy supply of in our diets?

I once had a bad fever and took some L-lysine pills, and I remember they had a very quick impact in reducing the fever. I assume that lysine plays some kind of role in cell destruction, and perhaps supplementing it in the diet at that right time might have helped my immune system to fight off the illness more quickly.

Likewise, I wonder if there are natural circadian rhythms in the body with respect to the autophagy and exocytosis that might suggest dietary supplementation/reduction of rate-limiting substances at certain times, in order to skew/bias your cellular processes to get the most autophagy and exocytosis happening.

Anybody have any comments on this?
Hehe, nobody worry, I'm not going to go out and write a diet book from this or anything.

[manofsan]

In engineering, we're trained to notice how different factors may prodominate under different conditions. For instance, surface tension may be a far more dominant influence at the tiny scale than it would be at a larger scale. I guess that's one reason our teeny-sized cells derive so much benefit from their little membranes, for example.

Analogously, different negative influences may predominate during different parts of our lives. I've read that young children should be kept out of harsh sun more than adults, and that little cancer tumors in small children can be far more difficult to control than cancer in middle-aged people, for example. I guess this may be partly because their fresh and rapidly-multiplying little cells with their long telomeres may offer much more leeway for cancer to run amok.

So with older people, it seems like the hazard posed by lipofuscin may predominate over other negative influences during that time of life. I guess small children don't usually have a lipofuscin problem (excluding Ataxia sufferers, of course).

So in light of that, what would be wrong in structuring a diet mainly around trying to deal with the lipofuscin problem? Sure, such a diet might not yield immediate benefits, but perhaps it could generate desirable benefits over the longer term.

Comments?

[Da55id]

This is so bizarre - I was thinking EXACTLY the same thing this morning in the context of "theraputic fasting" I even came up with a lamename for it "FastaThon" Theraputic Fast and Optimal Nutrition.

[manofsan]

Hmm, well, according to some cultural traditions, fasting is a routine part of lifestyle. But if it made a strong difference, then by now we'd have heard about such cultural groups enjoying much longer lifespans.

There's gotta be a more detailed and scientific way to look at diet and fasting. Maybe it's not a matter of pure fasting -- maybe there are some times when you want to minimize intake of certain things while simultaneously maximizing intake of other things.

For instance, minimizing intake of proteins and other anabolic nutrients while simultaneously increasing intake of stuff that encourages catabolic/autophagic activity. Then after some time, you invert that and take more proteins and anabolic stuff while reducing catabolic influences.

So perhaps the idea would be to exacerbate the swings between catabolic and anabolic activity. Comments?