Houseclean Your Body, Houseclean Your Life
February 27, 2012 1 Comment
I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house. ~Zsa Zsa Gabor
Most people hate it, but housecleaning does more than remove the dust from your domicile, research shows that it also speeds the removal of the body’s cellular garbage.
Every day our cells perform the job of recycling and sweeping away debris – broken proteins, cellular membrane remnants, bacteria, aged mitochondria. This process, called autophagy, turns out to be a very important function for the body as a whole.
Scientists report in Nature that the autophagy process affects metabolism and has wide-ranging health-related benefits, very similar to the effects of exercise on the body.
Mice that exercised showed accelerated autophagy; an increase in autophagy, prompted by exercise, appears to be a critical step in achieving the health benefits of exercise. The finding was hailed by researcher as “extremely exciting”:
“The study improves our understanding of how exercise has salutary impacts on health.”
~ Dr. Zhen Yan, Director of the Center for Skeletal Muscle Research at the University of Virginia
One implication of the research: it may be that people who don’t respond as robustly to aerobic exercise as have sputtering autophagy systems. Autophagy-prompting drugs or specialized exercise programs might help these people get more benefit from exercise, and make us more diabetes and weight gain resistant in the bargain.
The study further underscores the importance of staying active. Only mice that were active – and thus actively pumping up their autophagy – were able to fully regain health after being fed a fatty diet. The finding was exciting enough to drive one of the researchers to purchase a treadmill.
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An amazing article, thanks for the writing.