'Self Eating' To Live Longer?

There is something eating us all, it is inside all of us, but this is a good thing.

When we say something is eating us, we usually think of parasites that live off a host, they gain their nutrition and energy from the host. Things like intestinal worms come to mind (huge gross factor.)

But what if this wasn’t about a parasite, but our own bodies that devours our cells? Sounds painful and wrong, but it actually is very beneficial and we should all try to ensure our body continues to eat our cells, if we want to remain healthy and live longer.

We all want to recycle everything, and recycling is good. I want sustainable packaging and recycling to shape our future. I want the plastics out of the oceans and waterways and the pollutants out of our air.

We have polluted our bodies long enough with toxins from the environment and food processing and pesticides, etc too. This is not always our fault, when we do not know what’s in everything we consume, and the food industry is brilliant at changing the names of ingredients when a certain name of an ingredient becomes well known by the public.

What about recycling our body? I don’t mean zombie stuff. What I mean is, how do we recycle the cells that make up our bodies? Clean up the body pathways and cells? Clean out the junk?

Self - devouring is one way to do it. Let your body eat itself and recycle itself. Imagine that, a cleaning and recycling service all in one, removing damaged cells and regenerating newer, healthier cells? Or better yet, what if the recycling service would clean and repair damaged cells?

This cleaning and maintenance repair service also helps us to adapt to environmental stressors, and nutrient stress too. Our bodies are under stress when they do not receive the adequate nutrients in the right amounts.

I think in ‘western society,’ given the nutrient deficient average person’s diet, there is a lot of ‘self devouring’ going on within us all.

This recycling system not only protects us by removing the junk and repairing the broken cellular machinery, but also assists with immune function by stimulating antigens. Antigens assist our body to trigger an immune response to alien cellular invaders.

This recycling system is so clever it even works at a genetic level to fight against instability within our genome. During cell division, genome instability can occur and the mutations that result from genome instability may cause cancer.

Body tissue is important for survival, that is obvious. We consist of flesh and blood and bone, and the death of body tissues leads to ageing and other diseases. Cells make up our body tissue, so how can a mechanism that eats our cells not cause the death of body tissue? The cells that this mechanism removes are already dead, or needing renewal.

This mechanism of ‘self eating’ assists with circulation and prevents the death of body tissue. Death of body tissue usually occurs when our tissue cells lose blood flow. Without blood, the body tissue dies off. Think of the horrors of gangrene. We have a system that helps prevent this condition by assisting with circulation. This is all part of the recycling and rejuvenating process.

This system of self eating even assists with protecting us against autoimmune diseases and diabetes and protects our nervous system. The benefits to the nervous system are immense because the neuro degeneration leads to many fatal and debilitating diseases. If we lose nerve action within our cells, we lose cell function, ultimately leading to cell death.

This recycling and cleaning system is also very important to protect us against ageing, assisting the body in remaining more youthful.

This process is so clever that if we were to starve for a while, as some do during anorexia or deep moments of stress, loss of appetite, etc. This process will break down cellular material and use it where necessary.

This ‘self eating’ mechanism we call ‘autophagy’. This amazing and intricate cellular process has gained a lot of attention, because of the benefits it promises against Alzheimers, cancer, and Parkinsons' disease.

Autophagy declines as we age, and the result of this is that it does not remove the debris and junk as efficiently as when we are younger. This creates the perfect environment for cancerous cells to flourish.

How can we stimulate the recycling and maintenance and repair programme within our bodies? This amazing process called autophagy?

One simple way is fasting, but do this with caution: if you are not used to fasting, seek medical advice first before attempting to fast.

Personally, I prefer intermittent fasting, and what works best for me is to skip breakfast. I long believed the old mantra that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I tested that theory and found that this did not hold true for me. I am just as alert and full of energy without breakfast and I find I don’t crave food as much, heading into lunchtime when I miss breakfast.

It also frees up time in the morning when I have to hit the road to work.

I also do my exercise in the morning, because if I don’t, I will never get the time, once the working day starts. This routine works for me.

Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts?