How long does it take to achieve autophagy?

[jpatti]

I discuss what autophagy is in my first blog post.

As for what it takes to get into autophagy, all the studies that have been done on autophagy have either been in animals, or on individual human tissues in culture.

The animal studies don't apply and the different tissues have given different answers.

There are unlikely to ever be human studies as you'd have to get some volunteers together, not let them eat, then take biopsies from all their different bits: brain, liver, kidneys, spine, etc. repeatedly over a period of time. It'd be tough to find people to sign up for that!

Anyone who says they *know* when autophagy begins is not telling the truth.

Some people have more knowledge and experience and likely have better guesses than others. I tend to believe estimates from Dr. Attia and Dr. Fung most as I know they follow the research more closely than I.

But I have my own hypothesis. When I was a child, most everyone ate 3 meals a day, and had an intermittent fast of 14 hours. There were no obese adults in the town I grew up in except my father, who was also the only T2 diabetic I knew.

So I tend to believe that a 14 hour fast buys *some* autophagy. Probably not enough to prevent cancer, but enough to prevent obesity and diabetes in most people.

It's not enough for *me*, mostly because... well, to use the spring cleaning analogy, this body hadn't had a good spring cleaning in decades, so it needs a LOT of cleaning. Like... my body needs those people from the Hoarders show to come in and clean it up!

The more healing you need to do, the more autophagy, and hence fasting, you will need to achieve it.

Also, my dad gave me those crappy genes that didn't allow him to get by with just a 14-hour daily fast. He died at age 58 after being very sick and disabled for years. As I approached 58, I was in similar circumstances, so assumed I needed a helluva lot more fasting than he had in his life.

But the short answer is: no one knows when the various bits of your body go into autophagy, and the studies in cultures seem to indicate different answers. The charts you see are hand-waving estimates, not known facts.