I’ve seen a lot of articles explaining what autophagy is, but not very many on how it’s triggered and how to increase autophagy levels, other than those saying intermittent fasting helps. I’d greatly appreciate any recommendations for articles–preferably from the scientific literature–about triggering autophagy or increasing autophagy levels.
Autophagy is triggered by reduced available glucose. The cell senses that energy stored in the form of glucose is not abundant. It’s a bit like being cold. It’s absence of heat. When there is little available heat you start to shiver and rub your hands together, that’s how your body responds to lack of heat. Autophagy is your cell responding to lack of glucose.The best described molecular pathway of triggering autophagy is based on mTOR signalling.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31776980/
From this chart: https://imgur.com/a/wKHQFom autophagy is a process that spikes on day three. My understanding is that you must be doing a water fasting only otherwise, consuming anything else would trigger your liver and then stop the process.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/comments/5p30yj/dr_rhonda_patrick_said_drinking_coffee_yes_black/