Fortunately, autophagy has a direct effect on skin aging, and inducing the process can help tighten your skin and reduce the amount of loose skin on your body. It supports the processes that keep your skin more elastic and able to tighten up faster.
If you remain in a fasted state long enough, you will trigger the body's natural cell recycling process of autophagy. Fasting and autophagy don't directly rid the body of loose skin, but they help trigger processes that can prevent the skin from loosening in the first place.
As mentioned earlier, fasting can have a positive effect on tightening loose skin. That's because fasting is one of the best ways to help induce autophagy throughout your body.
Autophagy speeds the process of cell renewal and increases the rate collagen is produced.
Similar to how our bodies can eat away at unnecessary skin cells from loose skin through the process of autophagy, the appearance of aging is also slowed (and many say can even be reversed to an extent) when we activate this mechanism of clearing out old cellular parts – therefore revealing more youthful, vibrant skin.
“Think of autophagy as a Roomba inside your cells, cleaning and clearing damaged parts,” says Whittel. “When autophagy functions optimally, it works to clear away the cellular junk that can lead to fat and wrinkles.”
Growing evidence has demonstrated that in mammals, autophagy is responsible for the repair of damaged tissues and the replacement of impaired organs or body parts after injury. For example, in muscle regeneration, autophagy may regulate proteostasis and survival mechanisms in regenerating fiber.
Studies have shown that autophagy may take two to four days of fasting in humans. It is believed that autophagy does not begin until the glucose and insulin levels drop considerably. Some experts suggest starting with 32 to 48 hours; 72-hour fast autophagy pushes the limits for most humans but can be possible.
And autophagy comes with loads of potential benefits1 , including enhanced brain health, blood sugar control—and, yep, glowing skin. See, your skin cells also respond to this renewal process: When autophagy is kicked on, dull, damaged cells are replaced by younger ones (and younger, spry cells appear brighter).
Collagen production was found to be specifically decreased by acute fasting and the mechanism of this effect was studied.
More specifically, fasting can help reduce wrinkles, one of the most dreaded side-effects of aging. This is because fasting activates DNA-repair genes in the body that help reduce inflammation in the body. Fasting also leads to the production of somatropin, which helps minimize wrinkles and fine lines.
“In general, it can take anywhere from weeks to months—even years,” says Dr. Chen. If after one to two years skin is still loose, it may not get any tighter, she says.
For small to moderate amounts of weight loss, your skin will likely retract on its own. Natural home remedies may help too. However, more significant weight loss may need body-contouring surgery or other medical procedures to tighten or get rid of loose skin.
Autophagy can help remove cellular waste and keep genes stable within a cell. It may also help get rid of aging cells and decrease inflammation in the body.
Exercise
Building muscle mass through weight training exercises can help decrease the appearance of loose skin, especially if the loose skin is from weight loss. If excess fat distends the skin for a long time, the skin can lose some of its ability to shrink with weight loss.
Research has shown that autophagy kicks in after 12-16 hours of continuous fasting. There are many different methods to reach 12-16 hours of fasting, and intermittent fasters choose a method depending upon their eating preferences.
Extended fasting over the course of several days, or intermittent fasting over the course of several hours, both promote autophagy. The type of fasting needed to jumpstart autophagy typically requires 14 to 16 hours without eating, though this is dependent on your body's metabolism.
What turns off autophagy? Eating. Glucose, insulin (or decreased glucagon) and proteins all turn off this self-cleaning process. And it doesn't take much.
This form of cellular housekeeping allows our body to remove damaged parts of cells while recycling others. Inducing autophagy, especially through extended fasts, has become a popular habit among the longevity and biohacking crowds as a way to improve healthspan and live longer.
Active autophagy prevents an excessive inflammatory response by preventing the inflammasome activation, mediating the clearance of DAMPs and damaged mitochondria, and degrading inflammatory mediators.
Typically, to see any cellular benefits, one must fast for a minimum of 24 - 48 hours. During a fasting period, a person should not consume any calories but may continuously drink water, caffeine-free coffee, or tea to remain hydrated.
Exercise, but don't go crazy
And moderate exercise (including a mix of cardio, resistance training and high-intensity interval training) about 30 minutes per day seems to be ideal for autophagy activation — while excessive or prolonged exercise could negate some of its benefits.
There are no exact rules or recommendations (yet?), but researchers agree that extended fasting for autophagy — like going for 36, 48, or even 72 hours without food (like Jack Dorsey's three-day water fast) — is something that healthy people should do at most 2 or 3 times a year, and only after conferring with a doctor ...
One concern is that there can be too much autophagy—although not enough autophagy (cleaning) is not good, too much autophagy (or excessive cleaning) can result in its own set of problems (Figure 4), such that the cell dies (or the room loses functionality, as might happen if all of the furniture was removed during the ...