The fountain of youth may be a myth, but you can turn to the next best option: the
The Takeaway. Intermittent fasting is one of the easiest ways of building muscle, decreasing body fat and increasing your energy. And by triggering the cellular cleansing process of autophagy, intermittent fasting also improves your life span – and makes your skin look smoother and younger.
Eating less slows the rate of aging, extends lifespan, and reduces the risk of many aging-related diseases. Eating less can be accomplished in two ways: through caloric restriction or fasting.
A new scientific study has backed up some health claims about eating less. The clinical trial reveals that cutting back on food for just 5 days a month could help prevent or treat age-related illnesses like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
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.
Fasting benefits skin appearance by keeping it firm yet flexible, reducing loose skin while losing weight. Loose skin is usually the result of decreased skin elasticity due to a decline in collagen and elastin production.
Collagen production decreased with both duration and degree of food deprivation; after 8 d of 20% intake, collagen was less than 10% that of controls fed ad libitum (P less than 0.001).
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.
We hear lots about the benefits of fasting diets, including that they can help you live longer, but new research shows they can help rejuvenate your skin as well.
Alternate-day fasting improves markers of oxidative stress, a measure of longevity. Intermittent fasting has shown to protect against many age-related diseases including diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The best way to avoid these side effects is to stick to shorter fasting periods of up to 24 hours — especially when you're just starting out. If you want to increase your fasting period to more than 72 hours, you should seek medical supervision.
There is no set time that water fasting should last for, but medical advice generally suggests anywhere from 24 hours to 3 days as the maximum time to go without food.
When you fast, it improves the health of the gut so that the systemic inflammation of the skin reduces. The lowered inflammatory state in the gut makes the skin look younger, healthier, and clearer. In addition, fasting increases the body's metabolic activity, which also leads to a healthy body and skin.
The theory behind skin fasting Your skin produces an oily substance called sebum that helps prevent moisture loss. The idea behind “fasting” is to let the skin “breathe.” It's thought that cutting out products will let the skin neutralize and sebum naturally moisturize.
Fasting supercharges metabolism, making the body more efficient at breaking down nutrients and burning calories. It also slows down the degradation of DNA, which is what occurs when we age, and accelerates DNA repair, thus slowing down the aging process.
“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.”
Tissues and organs are repaired more rapidly during a fast than while eating nourishing food. As the body undergoes a complete internal renovation, new structures are built and the redistribution of nutritive material is also seen during a fast.
How long do you have to fast for autophagy to occur? Studies involving animals suggest that autophagy may begin between 24 to 48 hours of fasting.
A key sign of autophagy is reduced appetite. It's likely due to changed levels of hormones like glucagon and insulin. Specifically, levels of glucagon tend to increase during autophagy. Glucagon helps manage your blood sugar levels and has been shown to suppress appetite ( 6 , 10 , 11 ).
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.
The fountain of youth may be a myth, but you can turn to the next best option: the anti-aging impact of intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting triggers multiple changes in your body that slow down aging by keeping cells and DNA healthy.
“UV exposure can lead to the breakdown of collagen, which can lead to the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, so you're never too young to start wearing sunscreen regularly,” says Garshick. The American Academy of Dermatology recommends choosing a broad-spectrum sunscreen with SPF 30 or higher.
Autophagy speeds the process of cell renewal and increases the rate collagen is produced.