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episode #239

New Study: Intermittent Fasting increased autophagy and increased tumor suppressor P53!

April 3, 2023 in Podcast

Intro

This week I discuss a new study in which twenty-five healthy young males were recruited and performed 17–19 h/day fasting for 30 days.

In this explanatory study, Ramadan fasting (RF) was used to investigate the effects of prolonged IF on autophagy, inflammasome, and senescence activity in mRNA levels. Main conclusions from the study were the following:
  • Fasting 17 to 19 hours per day for 30 days increased autophagy and increased tumor suppressor P53.
  • Autophagy increased, favorable changes were made in the inflammasome hub, and there was a decrease in senescence-associated-signaling molecules.
  • P53 helps repair DNA damage, prevents senescence, and contributes to reduced atherogenic risk.
One downside of the study was the fact that none of the participants' sleeping, eating, and exercise habits were recorded which might influence autophagy, inflammasome, and senescence mRNA expression.

Either way, I thought this would be an interesting study to share and if you have any questions feel free to email me at brian@briangryn.com. Have a great week!

Episode Resources: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666149723000063



Brian (1s):

Hello and welcome to the Get Lean and Eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian grn. I'm a certified health coach, trainer and author, and this podcast is for middle-aged men and women looking to optimize their health and get their bodies back to what it once was 10 to 15 years ago. I will give you simple, actionable items to get long-term sustainable results. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. All right, welcome to the Get Lean e Clean podcast. My name is Brian Grn. Hope you had a great weekend and hope you listened to my interview with Dr. Neil Vin. He has a anti-aging and integrative medicine practice out of New York.

Brian (45s):

We touched on all about, you know, tips to optimize testosterone, some of his favorite supplements, ways to fix brain fog and headaches, advantages of red light therapy and much, much more. So if you haven't already, check out my interview with Dr. Neil Parvin. Really enjoyed that one. Hopefully you will as well. And that's episode 2 83. Gosh, that's a lot of episodes. And today I'm gonna touch on a interesting study on the micro podcast today that was brought about by Mike Musel with High Intensity Health. He brings up a lot of great studies and has great content. So if you haven't checked out his all his great content, check him out. And that's Mike Mutzel.

Brian (1m 26s):

And this one is, was about fasting. It was a new study founding, you know, just looking at 17th, 19 hours of intermittent fasting and how it could affect, you know, these biomarkers linked with longevity such as autophagy and some and metabolic health and things like that. So I'll put a link in the show notes if you wanna read it in more depth. I'm just gonna try to give you sort of the, the high level and the conclusions from the study that was done in the beginning of the year. The title of the study is called The Effect of Prolonged Intermittent Fasting on Autophagy, inflammasome and Senescence Genes, an An Exploratory Study in Healthy Young Males. So as it says right there, this was done on 25 healthy young males.

Brian (2m 10s):

They were recruited and performed seven to 17 to 19 hour daily fasting for 30 days. And blood samples were collected one week before, two weeks after the start, and one week week after the start, and then one more week after the end of it. So this was done for, for Ramadan actually. And essentially initially I think it started with like 40 individuals and it got down to 25. But either way it looked at the effects of intermittent fasting on autophagy inflammasome activity and senescence, which without going into a ton of detail, these are just can be hallmarks of anti-aging and ways to, you know, obviously if you've, if you've read anything about fasting, it's has been linked with, with helping with autophagy.

Brian (3m 1s):

Also the exercise can help with autophagy as well. And I thought the introduction of the, the whole study was, was made some great points in the sense that it's talking about how life expectancy has increased globally, but living longer doesn't guarantee a healthier life. A lot of these age-related diseases have become more pronounced over the decades. And so, you know, previous studies have emphasized effects of fasting and the advantages regarding some of these delayed onset age-related diseases. So, you know, one of the things that is great about fasting is the sense that it's non-invasive and it's a low cost preventative way that could help sort of maybe delay some of these age-related diseases.

Brian (3m 45s):

And like I said, autophagy is a cell cleanse and they, you know, essentially it's a way for your body to sort of, it's a catabolic process where you can sort of, you know, rid yourself of these unhealthy cells and sort of rejuven rejuvenation, excuse me, reducing calorie intake has also been shown to maybe link to some of these autophagy activators. I also think, you know, on my own opinion, I think it, you need that balance, right? You don't wanna always be in a catabolic state, which is what fasting is. You want to be also anabolic, which is growth and, and building muscle and things like that. But this study was simply based more of just like from an anti-aging approach because obviously, you know, diseases such as diabetes, cancer, you know, vascular diseases and many others have been on the rise.

Brian (4m 37s):

So that sort of prompted the start of this one study. And again, 25 young healthy males. This was done on, they looked at a lot of different markers like I mentioned to you before. And essentially the design of the study, like I said, was the study consisted of sort of four time points and, and one week before Ramadan, the middle of Ramadan, the last days of Ramadan, and then in one week after, and you'll see they do some, they put up some sort of cool designs and shows what happened with, you know, when they did the blood sampling as far as these inflammatory markers and these age-related markers.

Brian (5m 21s):

And so essentially the, the conclusion of this study was the fact that it did help. There were favorable changes in, in autophagy in P 53 and P 53 is a marker that helps repair D N a damage prevents senescence and contributes to reduced arthrogenic risk. So there were definitely some positive effects from doing, you know, not a, I wouldn't say this is a prolonged fast at all. This is sort of an, like I said, an intermittent fast where they were averaging about 17 to 19 hours per day for 30 days. So it did increase autophagy and increase tumor suppressor.

Brian (6m 3s):

P 53, which is obviously positive, has a positive effect on some of these anti-aging markers. It also showed the fact that regular exercise also can help with these autophagy initiation proteins as well. So really cool study. I'll, I'll put a link in the show notes and you can read definitely going. It, it, it goes into quite a bit of depth longer than this podcast would, would be, but either way it shows a nice diagram diagram, a graphical summary of sort of the, what's called the R mRNA expression of some of these, these anti-aging G markers such as autophagy, inflammasome, and senescence.

Brian (6m 47s):

And it showed the fact that they, they did increase through through these, this 30 day process. And then once the end of the intermittent fasting concluded the week after it sort of dipped back down. So really cool study. I'll leave a link in the show notes if you have any questions, let me know. But I think the basis is around this is, you know, doing some type of fasting is something that's, that can be beneficial. And I've talked about it before. Something for myself is you can also overdo it, right? It is a stressor to the body and to the system and I've had a lot of in individuals talk about that on my podcast as well. But for some of these sort of age related markers, it it, it can have a positive effect.

Brian (7m 31s):

And I think it also, what I like about it is the fact that it can h sort of help organize your day. And I think that's helpful for a lot of people because if we're just eating all the time and snacking late at night, that's, that's not a positive. We, we know that. So even just having some type of regimen where you h where you eat between a certain time period, and that could be between 12 hours. It doesn't, you know, this one was 17 to 19, but I think there's still a lot of gray, gray area in that sense is, you know, what's the perfect time? I don't think there'll ever be a perfect time, but you have to sort of find the time that fits your lifestyle. And also keep in mind that this was not a long duration fast because like I said, you don't want to create too much metabolism and lose lean mass, right?

Brian (8m 15s):

So as we age, we wanna increase lean mass and ways to do that is to create growth. And so we wanna make sure that we're prioritizing protein and eating enough as well. So anyways, those are just some of my thoughts on that. I will put a link in the show notes regarding this study and if you have any other questions, feel free to email me, brian brian grn.com or throw it in the comments below and share this with someone that you think will find beneficial. Thanks so much for listening and have a great rest of the week. Thanks for listening to the Get Lean e Unclean podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there and you've chosen to listen to mine and I appreciate that. Check out the show notes@briangrin.com for everything that was mentioned in this episode.

Brian (8m 59s):

Feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member that's looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again and have a great day.

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