The Benefits of Hormesis Require Autophagy

Hormesis describes the outcome of a little damage inflicted upon an organism or tissue resulting in a net gain in health and function. Exercise, lack of nutrients, heat, and low levels of toxins or radiation all stress cells, damaging proteins and structures, causing the affected cells to boost their repair and maintenance efforts for some time. If the exposure to damaging circumstances is sufficiently mild and short-lived, then the overall result is an improvement, the additional maintenance activities more than compensating for the damage inflicted. Researchers here demonstrate that this beneficial response requires the cellular recycling process of autophagy, responsible for removing structures and proteins that have become damaged or dysfunctional. The research community has for some time shown an interest in building therapies to slow the progression of aging based on enhancement of autophagy, but beyond calorie restriction mimetic research there has been surprisingly little concrete progress on this front. Biologists have known for decades that enduring a short period of mild stress makes simple organisms and human cells better able to survive additional stress later in life. Now, scientists have found that a cellular process called autophagy is critically involved in providing the benefits of temporary stress. Autophagy is a means of recycling cells' old, broken, or unneeded parts so that their components can be re-used to make new molecules or be burned for e...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs