Remedy mTOR

 

mTOR is the kinase that determines the overall body state into 2 categories – comfort and adversity. It is a very important discovery of evolution and plays a similar role in all animals, including yeast. On adversity, it signals autophagy and reuse signals – destroying unfixable garbage proteins that can not be repaired. In effect, it increases age. The autophagy process is central to cancer cures and deserves its own section.

 

When the body determines comfort, there are no evil events to comfort of body, food is plentiful, enough sleep is missing, it loves the comfort and proceeds to shut adversity pathways, i.e. declares comfort, feels and looks healthy, but is bad for age! 

 

Unlike animals, we are at the top of the food chain, are not cannibals, and developed environment improving technological evolution, so are no longer subject to biological evolution because tech-evolution outpaces bio-evolution by a factor of 1000 and I think that tech-evolution products make bio-evolution based success definitions easily targeted by tech-evolution products. I include brain developments given the successes in AI which render man-machine systems or cyborgs distinctly superior.

 

The mTOR puzzle is all comforts weaken aging processes. So, how can full-grown adults ramp up autophagy, cool the mTOR jets a bit – and ultimately age better and more slowly? Here are a few simple natural ways to get into the groove:

 

1.   Eat a bit less: To tame mTOR activity and trigger more autophagy, simply restrict calorie intake. One safe way to do that (absolutely no starvation allowed!) is with brief periods of caloric restriction (we’re talking hours at a time, not days). You can try approaches like intermittent fasting (IF), time-restricted eating (TRE), alternate-day or modified alternate-day fasting, or the 5:2 approach.

 

2.   Pile on plants: Animal proteins, especially red meat, contain high amounts of branched-chain amino acids like leucine, which stimulate mTOR. Plant proteins contain considerably less, so they won’t stimulate mTOR nearly as much. No need to swear off all animal protein (as in, meat, dairy, chicken, fish, eggs), but, in middle age, the average person would be wise to eat a lot less of it, ideally keeping daily protein intake in the 55-gram range, with most or even all of it coming from sources like almonds; broccoli; chickpeas; cruciferous veggies; hemp powder; lentils; onions; pea protein; nut butter; sunflower seeds; tempeh; turmeric, etc. For the 65-and-over set, it’s fine to ramp back up a bit to 70 grams daily to help minimize age-related muscle wasting or sarcopenia. 

 

 

3.   Add a little stress: As in the healthy, physical kind. In small doses, the healthy stress of moderate exercise – think walking or light jogging versus Ironman competitions or climbing Mt. Everest – encourages better aging via “hormesis.” Hormesis is your body’s response to small stresses—think fasting or caloric restriction for short periods; biking up a short, steep hill; or brief bouts of cold exposure. These bursts of adversity toughen up the cells and the body’s defenses against aging. 

 

4. Embrace mTOR tamers: To help tame the mTOR beast, you may also wish to augment your plant-based diet with a few supplements that can keep it – and aging – in check. Among my favorites: 

• Alpha-lipoic acid – Dosage: 300 to 600 milligrams per day (non-meat-eaters should aim for the higher end).
• Curcumin – Dosage: 500 to 1,000 milligrams twice a day. Take it with good fats, like avocado, so it can be properly absorbed. Add turmeric to your cooking too.
• Quercetin – Dosage: 500 to 1,000 milligrams per day. Best when paired with vitamin C or digestive enzymes like bromelain to aid absorption.
• Resveratrol – Dosage: 200 to 300 milligrams per day.
• Fish oil – Dosage: 1 to 3 grams per day.

 

5. Get your sleep on Getting high-quality shut-eye, think 7 – 8 hours a night, to help stoke your autophagy engine. Studies show that sleep deprivation encourages increased mTOR, so don’t skimp on this health-maintaining activity.

6. Adjust the temperature up and down: Swim in a cool pool, then dip in the hot tub or sauna (or vice versa); add a brief cold finish to your hot shower; or simply or spend a few minutes outdoors in the cold lightly dressed. Swinging back and forth between cold and hot will lightly stress your cells enough to encourage autophagy and keep mTOR at bay.