Autophagy, fasting, and exercise

(Erin Macfarland ) #1

For those of us who don’t do longer fasts (say more than 24 to 48 hours), but are very physically active, how much does autophagy differ as opposed to someone who does longer fasts but isn’t as physically active? So, if I can’t do long fasts due to being lean, but I exercise, does the exercise result in the same level of autophagy as someone who’s doing longer fasts? There’s a lot of science demonstrating that exercise stimulates autophagy, so I wonder how such a thing is measured?

(Rob) #2

:thinking::flushed::exploding_head: PASS

…but giving an interesting question a bump.

(Alec) #3

Erin
I am super interested in such science… do you have any references I could review? Thanks for your help.

I do a lot of exercise, and I am very interested in autophagy. I fast twice a week, but only for 36hrs at a time, hence I am thinking my autophagy is very limited. However, if it was accelerated with exercise, different story.
Cheers
Alec

#4

We’re not mice, but:

https://www.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajpendo.00270.2013

LC3b-II, a marker of autophagosome presence, increased in both conditions, but the increase was higher in the fasted state. Other protein markers of autophagy, like Gabarapl1-II and Atg12 conjugated form as well as mRNA of Lc3b, Gabarapl1, and p62/Sqstm1 were increased only when exercise was performed in a fasted state.

Also:
https://www.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/japplphysiol.01116.2014

These data demonstrate that autophagy signaling is activated in human skeletal muscle after 60 min of exercise, independently of nutritional status, and suggest that initiation of autophagy constitutes an important physiological response to exercise in humans.

(Erin Macfarland ) #5

These are the studies I found but I’m wondering how exercise correlates to fasting in humans…I wish there was more science!