Has Anyone heard of this?

[Guest guest]

It seems that autophagy is a key process in extending lifespan of

Caenorhabditis elegans. One way to increase levels of autophagous

activity in the body is nutrient starvation. should we be fine-tuning

nutrient deficiencies instead of making sure all are supposed needs

are met.

1: Autophagy. 2008 Apr 1;4(3):330-8. Epub 2008 Jan 21. Links

Comment in:

Autophagy. 2008 Apr 1;4(3):265-7.

Longevity pathways converge on autophagy genes to regulate life span

in Caenorhabditis elegans.Tóth ML, Sigmond T, Borsos E, Barna J,

Erdélyi P, Takács-Vellai K, Orosz L, Kovács AL, Csikós G, Sass M,

Vellai T.

Department of Genetics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.

Aging is a multifactorial process with many mechanisms contributing

to the decline. Mutations decreasing insulin/IGF-1 (insulin-like

growth factor-1) or TOR (target of rapamycin) kinase-mediated

signaling, mitochondrial activity and food intake each extend life

span in divergent animal phyla. Understanding how these genetically

distinct mechanisms interact to control longevity is a fundamental

and fascinating problem in biology. Here we show that mutational

inactivation of autophagy genes, which are involved in the

degradation of aberrant, damaged cytoplasmic constituents

accumulating in all aging cells, accelerates the rate at which the

tissues age in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. According to our

results Drosophila flies deficient in autophagy are also short-lived.

We further demonstrate that reduced activity of autophagy genes

suppresses life span extension in mutant nematodes with inherent

dietary restriction, aberrant insulin/IGF-1 or TOR signaling, and

lowered mitochondrial respiration. These findings suggest that the

autophagy gene cascade functions downstream of and is inhibited by

different longevity pathways in C. elegans, therefore, their effects

converge on autophagy genes to slow down aging and lengthen life

span. Thus, autophagy may act as a central regulatory mechanism of

animal aging.

PMID: 18219227 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Autophagy occurs at a basal level in normal growing conditions;

however, certain types of environmental stress result in a dramatic

induction. For example, yeast autophagy is induced by nutrient

starvation, including nitrogen and carbon depletion.

http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v12/n2s/full/4401765a.html