Skip to main content

Weight training - like fasting - promotes autophagy?

This post is more about joining up a couple of ideas - just me thinking out loud. The following abstract was pointed to to me over the weekend. It looks at some of the effects of resistance training and the role of various amino acids in controlling protein synthesis.

Amino acids taken immediately before or immediately after exercise increase the post-exercise rate of protein synthesis. Therefore a protein that controls protein degradation and amino acid-sensitivity would be a potential candidate for controlling the activation of protein synthesis following resistance exercise.

Ok, now what is interesting is that they then point out a particular protein:

One such candidate is the class III PI3K (phosphoinositide 3-kinase) Vps34 (vacuolar protein sorting mutant 34). Vps34 controls both autophagy and amino acid signalling to mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) and its downstream target p70 S6K1 (S6 kinase 1).

The abstract goes on:

We have identified a significant increase in mVps34 (mammalian Vps34) activity 3 h after resistance exercise, continuing for at least 6 h,

Now it is hard to be clear about what else the full paper is saying because I can only get the abstract, but it seems to say that resistance training promotes autophagy.

Autophagy is a fairly recent discovery in immunology that I have written about before in connection with fasting. Fasting turns on autophagy and now it seems that - potentially - so does resistance training.

Autophagy as I said before:

........... (literally self-eating) a process in which your cells consume and recycle damaged internal material.

The process seems to be triggered when the energy content of the cell declines so that the cell literally consumes itself. It goes after the damaged materials first, so there is a strong link between repair of damaged tissues and fasting or low energy state in the cell. So, it you are over-fed you down regulate cellular repair. You want to go hungy episodically to turn on cellular autophagy and repair those damaged tissues.

Anyway, just some ideas......
Labels:

Comments

Marc said…
Chris,

There is a study confirming this out loud thinking you're doing. ;-)
I will dig through my files and see if I can find.

Marc
February 11, 2008 at 7:24 AM
Anonymous said…
Chris:

Try this:

http://www.arthurdevany.com/?p=674


And this:

http://news.ufl.edu/2007/08/23/recycle-2/
February 11, 2008 at 8:51 AM
Anonymous said…
...Oh, I see how you referenced those in your previous article.
February 11, 2008 at 8:53 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dry January

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was taking part in "Dry January".  I didn't make a big song and dance about it, but I decided to go for a calendar month or so with no alcohol.  A few people have asked me about my experience, so here are a few points. Why take a break from drinking? Alcohol is an interesting topic.  As a drug it is widely accepted in society, central to so much of our socialising and leisure.  There seem to be lots of health benefits - so we are told - yet there are also a lot of problems in terms of health, relationships and lifestyle that come from drinking. Over a few years I'd begun to become aware and then concerned that I was drinking too much and too regularly.  I am in a busy and stressful job and sometimes a glass of wine after work to relax is really helpful.  But over time, one glass became two.  Two glasses became ....I might as well finish the bottle.  A habit got established....and was starting to get too e...
7 comments
Read more

So where have I been?

You will have noticed that this blog has been quiet for a while....  There are a few reasons for that, reasons that I thought I'd list here: WORK -  my day job has been incredibly busy and stressful this year. Working 10-14 hour days the last thing on my mind when I got home was putting something on here.  FACEBOOK/TWITTER - I suppose I've been using other channels to do some of what I used to do here. Quick fire posts pointing to interesting studies or news etc tend to get posted to Twitter (@chrishighcock) or to the Facebook Hillfit group http://www.facebook.com/groups/263083947097000/  REASSESSMENT - I've found myself less comfortable with some of the positions I've taken in the past. Sometimes I'm embarrassed by some of the things I've promoted. I'm not Paleo or low carb. I think Tabata and intervals are misunderstood and misapplied. I cannot really claim to be HIT.   I find myselfunable  honestly to post things on here and pretend that I am some sort o...
12 comments
Read more

Taking up space for a brief update

I've a couple of posts in draft that I will get up soon -  an update / reflection on Dry January and some thoughts on the scheduling benefits of short workouts if your life is busy.  Before that though, I am pointing to something else. However, I wanted to highlight something that is coming this weekend that I've been involved in.   Amber Rogers (Gokaleo and author of Taking Up Space ) has been pulling together a bundle of books from various authors with a common theme, one that I've been pushing here recently.   Keep it simple, avoid the hype, be patient, be consistent and flee the gurus.   I've talked before about how we get obsessed with pushing for more and more, when enough is OK.  I've given my view that so much of the health and fitness internet world is more like a gnostic religion than something that will benefit your life. There are other voices out there saying similar things and I'll be pointing to a bundle of books later this week ...
1 comment
Read more