Sunday, October 9, 2016

Dysregulated Autophagy


#Inktober2016
#MaybeYouShouldSeeADoctorAboutThat

(But what if I taste bad?)

"Autophagy" is the term for a biological process where the body consumes itself, cleaning out dysfunctional material. 

This process can supposedly be brought on by fasting, exercise, or our popular friend, the ketogenic diet.

 The Nobel Prize in medicine was in fact recently awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi
for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy. His work involved yeast, and does not have immediate applications in human beings. 

The autophagic process can supposedly stop cancerous growths and disease processes like diabetes. But I fear that like many scientific discoveries, it will prove to be much more complicated in people.

My adventures in self-cannibalism have definitely been mixed.

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