Is Autophagy Effective Against Cancer?

Executive Summary

• One of the newer cancer treatments is called autophagy.
• How effective is this treatment?

Introduction

Autophagy is a very curious approach to treating cancer — in addition to the other things that autophagy is used for.

The Cleveland Clinic on Autophagy

The Cleveland Clinic describes autophagy as like defragmenting a hard drive for one’s cells.

Autophagy is also quality control for your cells. Too many junk components in a cell take up space and can slow or prevent a cell from functioning correctly. Autophagy remakes the clutter into the selected cell components you need, optimizing your cells’ performance.

Autophagy is essential for a cell to survive and function. Autophagy:

Recycles damaged cell parts into fully functioning cell parts.
Gets rid of nonfunctional cell parts that take up space and slow performance.
Destroys pathogens in a cell that can damage it, like viruses and bacteria.

Autophagy-related proteins (ATGs) make autophagy possible. ATGs cause structures called autophagosomes to form. Autophagosomes carry the junk cell pieces to a part of the cell called a lysosome. A lysosome’s job is to digest or break down other cell parts.

Imagine lysosomes — part of a cell — eating other parts of the cell. The word “autophagy” is a combination of two Greek words translated to mean “self-devouring”:

Medical Media on Autophagy

This is an excellent place to start on the topic of autophagy.

This is Healthline on autophagy.

Additionally, registered dietitian, Scott Keatley, RD, CDN, says that in times of starvation, autophagy keeps the body going by breaking down cellular material and reusing it for necessary processes.

removing toxic proteins from the cells that are attributed to neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease
recycling residual proteins
providing energy and building blocks for cells that could still benefit from repair
on a larger scale, it prompts regeneration and healthy cells.

“Autophagy declines as we age, so this means cells that no longer work or may do harm are allowed to multiply, which is the MO of cancer cells,” explains Keatley.

“This is how the body polices the cancer villains,” she explains. “Recognizing and destroying what went wrong and triggering the repairing mechanism does contribute to lowering the risk of cancer.”

“Ketosis, a diet high in fat and low in carbs brings the same benefits of fasting without fasting, like a shortcut to induce the same beneficial metabolic changes,” she adds. “By not overwhelming the body with an external load, it gives the body a break to focus on its own health and repair.”

In the keto diet, you get about 75 percent of your daily calories from fat, and 5 to 10 percent of your calories from carbs.

One non-diet area that may also play a role in inducing autophagy is exercise. According to one animal study physical exercise may induce autophagy in organs that are part of metabolic regulation processes.

This brings up the question of whether one can exercise instead of either not eating or going into ketosis. Going into ketosis is hard on the body, and fasting leads to other problems, including significantly lower energy levels.

Is one supposed to drive a car when one is fasting?

Is that safe?

How is one’s reaction time considered to be the same when a person is fasting?

I ask because when I have been pushed into low blood sugar due to postponing a meal for whatever reason, I not only felt weak, I could not concentrate, and I would not be able to react in a situation that required me to. I do not like this feeling, and I am careful to stick to consistent meal times. I feel very uncomfortable supporting anything that undermines a person’s overall physical capabilities and alertness.

Fasting and Ramadan

If we can look at Ramadan in Muslim countries, we find that fasting can also lead to gorging. So it is not so simple that one fast, and then it does not impact things post-fast.

This video shows what happens after the fast during Ramadan. 

These are more benefits from triggering autophagy listed in a separate article at Healthline.

decreased blood glucose production
stem cells triggered to regenerate the immune system
balanced nutritional intake increased production of tumor-killing cells

A significant issue with the studies on autophagy is that they are primarily with animals, and most studies on mice or other animals do not translate to humans. This is explained in the following quote from an article from Cedars Sinai.

“Right now, we know going 16 to 24 hours without nutrients is beneficial in animals,” she says.

“But we don’t know much about humans. We would love to figure out what kind of fasting helps and also what role exercise has in driving autophagy.”

However, I was able to find specific information on the effect of exercise on autophagy. This is from the site Inside Tracker.