I think autophagy is very interesting and a great way to heal your body and possibly avoid cancer. I know it’s new science and very hard to observe in humans. I watched a video on Keto Skinny on Fat today. Dr. Girth said that you need a 4 day water fast to get the benefits of autophagy. To me that means no coffee or tea, which would be quite challenging. Any thoughts?
Autophagy Fast
Iced
(The amazing autoimmune 🦄)
#2
If you are already in ketosis it takes less time to start autophagy.
Alpha
(Omar)
#3
black coffee and tea should be fine with autophagy one a day.
too many cups induce cortisone and can interfere with some liver functions I would not advice it Even though some people think it’s ok
OldDoug
(Doug)
#4
4 days is good - autophagy starts increasing possibly late in the first 24 hours, and increases at least to 3 or 4 days of fasting time. The levels of mTOR, AMPK, insulin, glucagon, etc. - which regulate autophagy - become more favorable for it as we fast for multiple days. Human studies are woefully few, but in a mouse, autophagy increases to at least 48 hours, at which point the mouse is half way or more to starving to death, for comparison.
We are not mice, but we are mammals and on a cellular level there is great commonality and similar function and occurrences, often. As far as I can tell, black coffee or tea is fine, perhaps even beneficial when fasting for autophagy.
GentleBen
#5
I guess that 1 tbsp of HWC and 1 squirt of Splenda in my 1 cup of coffee daily have been preventing me from gaining any autophagic benefits during my recent 3-4 day fasts?
Bummer if so. Thankfully it does not inhibit weight loss.
But I can surely do without that little bit of coffee during my future extended fasting. Indeed, tomorrow I will eliminate it during Day 4 since I have not had coffee in about 12 hours. Maybe I can instigate some hurried-up autophagy in these last two days of the fast.
OldDoug
(Doug)
#6
Ben, while there is much we don’t know, I feel that the little amount of cream may not be a big deal, as far as autophagy. At the worst I’d say it’s a matter of degree. Coffee itself may be a net positive for autophagy - it is in mice.
Spenda - somewhat of an unknown. If it makes your insulin level go up, that may damp down autophagy.
ctviggen
(Bob M)
#7
Some say any calories stop autophagy, others say it’s a scale, low cals is still autophagy, just to a lesser degree. No one seems to agree.
daddyoh
(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!)
#8
There is a research paper that suggests that bergamot (Earl Gray tea) simulates autophagy. I have been doing some If and OMAD and on 42 hr fast and my hair color is coming back around my bald spot. I assume that is autophagy. Might be wrong. Hard to prove. Not enough science on autophagy yet.
I drink earl gray from wild foods when I am fasting and a little black coffee.
daddyoh
(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!)
#10
Here is a post on it with a picture. Oldest daughter and wife say yes this is real. Funny thing is wife is nonplussed about it. I think, she thinks, I think keto cures everything. Doesn’t it?
@juice I did that for you “I think, she thinks, I think”
Alex_PN
(Alex )
#11
RightNOW
(PJ)
#12
I’m a base nutrients fast (water and some supplements). Here’s hoping minerals (every other day) and vit/min/misc/herb extracts (every 4 days) don’t kill the autophagy effort. I went off caffeine for the fast!
daddyoh
(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!)
#13
Let us know how it goes. I drank my last cup of coffee thi morning an no more till this fast is done. I’m doing this one for wt lose but if I get some autophagy benefits, all the better.
Have a great fast.
RightNOW
(PJ)
#15
I ramped caffeine down a few days prior, but was still having a couple diet drinks with it plus a big coldbrew coffee in the morning, up to the fast.
I was moderate carb not keto at the time (unusual for me). I’d been higher carb previously and was in the process of losing the carb water that brought on, but was not done.
The bigger deal is I also ramped down diuretics pretty fast the 5 days before the fast. I’ve been trying to get off them for the 3 years I’ve been on them. Trying to juggle keto’s low water and them. My kidneys have been struggling. They don’t hurt, but my lower back in that region hurts horribly. They had almost no frequency or output at first, but are gradually improving in both areas so I think it’s just a matter of time.
As fasting from end of 1800s to 1950 (and in a few places still) was done long-term for health issues, I figured fasting was probably the best thing I could do for my poor beleaguered kidneys anyway.
(It’s not an infection. I’m familiar with all this, after years on D with high edema --which is now so much lower I believe keto can handle it. It’s just that I’ve been on D so long, their native response has reduced hugely and needs some time to recover. Many people say they can gain 20-30# (and this is people half my size) from going off diuretics, over about 3 weeks, though it then goes down the following 3 weeks. I suspect unless my fast is very long, this is going to really screw with my weight-related stats.)
I’ll make a thread of my own for ongoing stats as soon as I get my various monitoring stuff this week and get a better spreadsheet setup for it than I have now. I’ve been using google docs but there are so many limits on graphing and manual mock-graphs compared to Excel, I’ll probably switch.
In the 5.5 days of fasting so far I have lost about 4# which I believe is entirely LBM, not water, as my urine output has not been large enough yet even to fully match my water intake (though I realize some is used in-body), and my RMR even if oddly low, is still pretty big compared to the average person, so 1#/day is reasonable (it’s gone down precisely 1.0#/d for the last four days).
Aside from the lower back pain from the kidney/diuretic recovery issue, I have actually felt really decent this entire time. It’s forced me to be totally sedentary though.
Energy is fine. And I haven’t been hungry. 2 minutes on day 2. Last night I had a strong urge to eat but it wasn’t body-hunger, just a low drive. It went away after about 30 minutes.
I expected to get horrible headaches from the caffeine withdrawal which is the norm if I suddenly stop even the smaller amount I was intaking. Nada. Weird!
I might add that caffeine is a diuretic. So that’s probably adding to the new water load and need for processing that K’s should be doing and so far aren’t really. They’re getting there I think. Patience…
I used to wean myself off caffeine every month for a few days, because I just hate the idea of being addicted to or dependent on anything. (I’m a bit Type-A…)
But! This is kinda funny. I’ve been reading and it turns out that caffeine actually contributes to autophagy which is one of my goals (I’m on water + ‘supplements’ for what I call a base nutrients fast). So I got some Earl Grey tea (because, as it turns out, bergamot does too!) and another tea that might have a tiny bit of cal (not sure) but it was chocolate mint ffs so I couldn’t resist, and I will probably begin drinking a tiny bit of them in a couple days when they arrive. I am not a tea person at all, especially unsweetened! But the 5.5 days so far have lowered my standards for flavor. 
Robinette71
(Tamela Robinette)
#16
Following this conversation because I’m deeply interested in autophagy and I’m a coffee addict. I have weaned myself down to one cup of caffeinated and 2 cups of decaf. Maybe I can do a half cup of caffeinated tomorrow. If it promotes autophagy then screw it I’m have my very strong cup of Joe fasting or not 
Alpha
(Omar)
#17
Thanks for the interresting reply
I wait your dedicated thread.
I posted in this forum that I do not think caffeine is bad. Because in my case decaf is as bad as regular coffee if not worse for the chemical solvents they add to extract caffeine. Coffee has 200 substances, it contains lots of pollutants from industrial farming and processing. So I am not sure if it is caffeine.
