Nobel Prize 2016: The Laureate Proved That Fasting is Beneficial

Yoshinori Ohsumi - a specialist in cell biology from Japan - became the Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine

The Nobel Week has begun, during which the most prestigious scientific awards will be distributed and the laureates in the fields of medicine and physiology, physics, and chemistry will be announced.

The laureate in the field of medicine and physiology was named today - October 3, 2016. He is Yoshinori Ohsumi, a cell biology specialist from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, who was awarded for "discovering the mechanisms of autophagy."

The press release from the Nobel Committee states:

“Ohsumi's discoveries have led to a new paradigm in our understanding of how the cell recycles its contents. His findings have opened the way to understanding the fundamental importance of autophagy for many physiological processes, such as adaptation to hunger and response to infection.

Autophagy is the process of recycling and disposing of unnecessary parts of the cell - various accumulated "waste" within it. The term that names the process is derived from two Greek words that together translate as "self-eating." Or "self-consumption."

The fact that the phenomenon exists at all was discovered by scientists back in the 1960s. But they could not figure out the intricacies of the mechanism. In the 1990s, Ohsumi did. Conducting his experiments, he also identified genes responsible for autophagy. And now, almost a quarter of a century later, the award has found its hero, who became the 39th scientist in history to be awarded the Nobel Prize individually.

Autophagy is inherent in living organisms, including ours. Thanks to it, cells get rid of unnecessary parts, and the organism as a whole gets rid of unnecessary cells.

Nature has wisely endowed cells with such an amazing and useful ability - to digest what seems "excessive" or harmful. They operate almost like we do. Only automatically. They package the "waste" into special bags - autophagosomes. Then they move them to containers - lysosomes. Where "all the nastiness" is destroyed and digested. The recycling products - a kind of "secondary raw material" - are used to produce fuel for the cell's nourishment. From them, new building blocks are also made, used for cell renewal.

Formation of the phagosome.

Thanks to autophagy, the cell cleanses itself of infections that have entered it and from the toxins that have formed.

Autophagy begins to work most intensively when the organism experiences stress. For example, during starvation. In this case, the cell generates energy from its internal resources - from all the accumulated waste. And also - from pathogenic bacteria.

The laureate's discovery indicates: fasting, and sometimes even abstaining from food, is indeed beneficial - the body really cleanses itself. Confirmed by the Nobel Committee.

As Ohsumi's colleagues assure, autophagy protects the body from premature aging. It may even rejuvenate by creating new cells, removing defective proteins and damaged intracellular elements, keeping it in good condition.

Fusion of the phagosome and lysosome. Disruptions in the processes of autophagy lead to Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and even cancer. Understanding this, medical professionals are already creating new drugs capable of correcting these disruptions and, therefore, healing.

However... It seems that for preventive purposes, it is worth fasting sometimes, putting the body into a health-promoting, as it turns out, stress.

Yoshinori Ohsumi was born in 1945. He will receive his prize of 8 million Swedish kronor - just over 950 thousand US dollars - along with other laureate scientists in Stockholm on December 10.

Source: https://www.balkans.kp.ru/daily/26589.5/3605050/