🧬 RNAwiki

Senescence / Autophagy

💡 Did you know? Fasting triggers autophagy — your cells eating their own damaged parts for fuel and renewal. The scientist who mapped it won the 2016 Nobel Prize.

In one line: Ageing is partly a garbage problem — old "zombie" cells that won't die, and cellular junk that needs recycling.

Picture this: Two housekeeping systems keep cells young. Autophagy is the cell's recycling program — it breaks down damaged parts and reuses them (fasting and exercise switch it on). Senescence is the opposite problem: some damaged cells refuse to die and instead sit around leaking inflammation — "zombie cells." Senolytics are compounds that clear those zombies out.

Step by step:

  1. Over time, cells accumulate damaged parts (junk) and some become senescent (zombies).
  2. Autophagy recycles the junk — triggered by low mTOR, high AMPK, fasting, and exercise.
  3. Zombie cells, meanwhile, secrete inflammatory signals that age nearby tissue.
  4. Senolytic compounds selectively kill those zombie cells, reducing the inflammation.

Why it matters for you: This is the frontier of longevity. Fisetin (taken as a monthly 2-day pulse) clears zombie cells; spermidine and rapamycin boost recycling. Fasting and exercise do both for free.

Turn it up: fisetin and quercetin (clear zombies), spermidine and rapamycin (boost recycling), fasting, exercise. Don't be fooled: senolytics are pulsed (a couple of days), not taken daily — and the human evidence is still early, however compelling the mechanism.

The whole map in one paragraph

Building muscle lives on mTOR + the androgen receptor + growth-factor signalling. Losing fat lives on the cAMP doorbell (stimulants), GLP-1, and AMPK. Focus and mood live on dopamine/serotonin, acetylcholine, and the GABA brake. Longevity lives on AMPK (up), mTOR (down), NAD⁺, cleanup crews, and healthy mitochondria. Hormones run through the testosterone loop, the stress axis, and nuclear receptors. Recovery and blood flow run through nitric oxide, growth-factor healing, and turning inflammation down. Sixteen switches — learn them, and every compound on this site becomes something you can reason about yourself.