As a regular reader, you know you don’t need Big Pharma’s dangerous drugs to increase and improve your health span.
Tell that to the so-called experts in the National Institutes of Health… They’re testing an immunosuppressant cancer drug called rapamycin as the latest “longevity pill.”
Rapamycin works to control cellular growth by suppressing your immune system. It’s FDA approved for people who undergo organ transplants.
This drug is necessary to keep patients from rejecting a donated organ. But it’s a dangerous way to promote longevity.
The FDA even slapped a “black box” on it. That’s the agency’s most extreme warning for drugs that come with “serious or life-threatening risks” — like infections, pneumonia, and cancer.
So, why are they pushing rapamycin?
In a large dog study, researchers predict rapamycin will provide a 15% increase to the animal’s life. If it works in humans like they think it will in dogs, scientists predict it could add 11 extra years to your life.
Despite the danger, scientists want to test the drug because it’s known to trigger a complex biological process called autophagy.
This little-known form of cellular “self-cannibalism” is the way your body rids itself of dangerous waste and debris. If “trash” builds up, it eventually causes the chronic diseases we associate with aging.
Staying disease-free is dependent on your body’s autophagy leaping into action when needed. But, between aging and decades of consuming the standard American diet, we’ve gradually lost this ability.
If you don’t do something about it, you look, feel, and act old because your body is carrying around so much cellular baggage.
In the brain, this dead weight can lead to Alzheimer’s. When it builds up in your pancreas, it interferes with the insulin-secreting beta cells and leads to diabetes.
It can affect your heart, lungs, joints
, and virtually any organ — and can lead to conditions like heart disease, hypertension, cancer, and arthritis.In the last few years, several studies looked at the effects of autophagy on aging.
In one study, when researchers turned on genes that activate autophagy, the median life span of mice increased 17.2%.1 That translates to an incredible 14 additional human years — increasing a person’s life span from 78.5 to 92.
But here’s what really counts… These animals didn’t just live longer. They were also healthier. They maintained lower body weight than normal mice well into older age.
They had increased insulin sensitivity, indicating improved metabolic health. And they had better physical functioning.
When the researchers turned off the autophagy process, all these benefits disappeared. Studies have shown that turning on autophagy is a powerful treatment for heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, and arthritis.2,3,4,5,6
Fortunately, there are easy, natural ways you can speed up autophagy, improve your health span — and slow down aging. I strongly advise that you DON’T rely on rapamycin.
3 simple ways to trigger autophagy for anti-aging benefits
One of the most effective ways to activate autophagy is through fasting and calorie restriction… But there are ways you can induce it with your lifestyle choices. Here’s what I suggest:
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- Work out with intensity. Exercise puts your body’s cells under stress. When you workout, your cells become damaged and inflamed. Autophagy reverses this. But the kind of exercise you do is important. Research shows that a single bout of high intensity exercise, like my PACE principle, is more effective in inducing autophagy than prolonged exercise with moderate intensity.7 Why not check out a free PACE class online? Or call the Sears Institute for Anti-Aging Medicine at 561-784-7852 to ask about one-on-one PACE instruction.
- Drink coffee. At least in mice, both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee can induce autophagy in the liver, muscle tissue, and heart. The effects persists even when coffee is given along with food. The mice didn’t have to fast for the coffee to induce autophagy.
- Take curcumin. This Indian spice has been shown to encourage both apoptosis (programmed cell death) and autophagy in leukemia and other cancer cells.8 Curcumin was also found to promote autophagy in diabetic patients with cardiomyopathy, or diseased heart muscle. I suggest supplementing with 500 to 1,000 mg of curcumin daily. Look for a supplement with piperine (an extract from black pepper). Adding 20 mg of piperine can increase the bioavailability of curcumin dramatically.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD, CNS
References:
1. Pyo JO, et al. “Overexpression of Atg5 in mice activates autophagy and extends lifespan.” Nat Commun. 2013;4:2300.
2. Horne B., et al. “Usefulness of routine periodic fasting to lower risk of coronary artery disease among patients undergoing coronary angiography.” Am J Cardiol. 2008 October 1.
3. Goldhamer A., et al. “Medically supervised water-only fasting in the treatment of hypertension.” J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2001 Jun.
4. Lesica N. “Intermittent fasting could help tackle diabetes — here’s the science.” The Conversation. August 21, 2017.
5. Rossner P, et al. “Plasma protein carbonyl levels and breast cancer risk.” J Cell Mol Med. 2007.
6. Kjeldsen-Kragh J, Haugen M, et al. “Controlled trial of fasting and one-year vegetarian diet in rheumatoid arthritis.” Lancet. 1991 Oct 12;338(8772):899-902.
7. Pagano A, et al. “Autophagy and protein turnover signaling in slow-twitch muscle during exercise. Med Sci Sport Exercise. 2014;46(7):1314–25.
8. Shakeri A, et al. “Curcumin: A naturally occurring autophagy modulator.” J Cell Physiol. 2019 May;234(5):5643-5654.