How to Avoid the Garbage Catastrophe of Aging

P.D. Mangum writes about The Garbage Catastrophe of Aging and How to Avoid It.

The main mechanism for damage repair is autophagy, from the Greek for “self-eating”. Autophagy is the cellular self-cleansing process in which cellular organelles such as mitochondria and proteins within the cell are broken down and their components recycled for making new organelles and proteins.

Autophagy is a daily occurrence — or should be — with peaks and troughs of activity. The absence of food strongly increases the rate of autophagy, so that in young organisms at least, its rate rises dramatically overnight. Fasting even longer than overnight further increases the rate of autophagy.

Other interventions besides fasting also increase autophagy, for instance, exercise and certain drugs and supplements.

But in older organisms, the capacity for increasing autophagy in response to fasting or other stimuli decreases. This leads to a rising level of damage that interferes with cell function and is characteristic of aging.

Autophagy is crucial for the organism. Treatments that prolong lifespan, for example calorie restriction, fasting, or even genetic manipulation of insulin signaling, require the organism to possess an intact autophagy mechanism to work.
No autophagy, no lifespan extension.

How to prevent and/or slow aging
Iron
I’ve argued that iron is the primary driver of aging, and looking at aging from the standpoint of the garbage catastrophe lends new support to this idea. Why?

Because iron is required for the formation of lipofuscin, the cell’s toxic waste.

Therefore, to slow the formation of lipofuscin, keep iron levels in the low normal range. Ferritin is the body’s main iron-storage molecule, and the more you have of it, the more will be turned over on lysosomes and the more iron will be left there, creating lipofuscin and catalyzing chemical reactions that damage cell structures.

Intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting (and calorie restriction, which few people are willing to do over the long term) activates autophagy potently. Therefore fasting increases the clearance of damage. In older people, whose cells are clogged with garbage that inhibits autophagy, fasting may bring the rate of autophagy back to youthful levels.

Autophagy boosters
Certain substances/drugs can boost autophagy. These include resveratrol, hydroxycitrate, curcumin.

Exercise
Exercise increases autophagy and thus the clearance of cellular damage.

Normal blood sugar
Keeping blood sugar in the low normal range will help to prevent the formation of advanced glycation end-products (AGE), one of the constituents of non-degradable cellular garbage.

Experimental treatments
There have been a few reports of substances that can clear lipofuscin from cells. If these were to pan out, they could turn out to be potent anti-aging interventions.

One such substance is a form of cyclodextrin, which is a cheap safe molecule that is already used as an excipient in medicines.10

This form of cyclodextrin upregulates autophagy and clears cellular junk.

Read more here.