Last Updated on November 9, 2023 by Fasting Planet
Does fasting make you look younger?
Almost everyone wishes they could pause the hands of time, especially as they begin to develop wrinkles, fine lines, and loosening skin. You’d like to try something outside of cosmetic treatments to look younger, but what are your options? Can intermittent fasting really slow down and even reverse aging?
Fasting, especially intermittent fasting, can help you look younger and may even be able to reverse the effects of aging. When you fast, your body undergoes a process called autophagy, which can recycle unhealthy cells so your skin has more fibroblasts that continually produce collagen. Further, fasting increases your metabolites, which could extend your lifespan.
Yes, that’s right, not only can you rely on fasting to look younger, but to possibly live longer as well. In this post, we’ll explain the science of how this happens, including a discussion on autophagy. We’ll even touch on why weight loss can instantly make you appear younger. You’re not going to want to miss it.
Does Autophagy Make You Look Younger?
Before we explain how autophagy can improve your appearance so you feel and look younger, let’s take a moment to explain what autophagy is and how it works.
Your body always undergoes autophagy to some degree. When this process occurs, your young, healthy cells take old, damaged cells parts and recycle them. In some cases, the old cells are eaten in part, while in others, the cells are fully consumed. In doing this, the body is more efficient. Younger, healthier cells ensure regular processes occur while older cells would only slow things down.
By intermittent fasting, you speed up autophagy for even more cell recycling. You must fast for at least 12 to 16 hours for autophagic processes to really kick into gear, but once it happens, your skin enjoys a myriad of benefits.
Two structural proteins keep your skin looking young: elastin and collagen. Elastin is a type of connective tissue that provides elasticity and bounciness to the skin. Collagen keeps your skin looking healthy and youthful, free of fine lines, wrinkles, and other signs of aging.
Where does collagen come from? That would be fibroblasts, a biological cell that also affects your wound-healing speed. Like any cell, the life of a fibroblast is not forever. As your fibroblast efficiency lessens, your body produces less collagen, which can begin to make your skin look older.
According to a 2018 study in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, although older and younger fibroblasts had about the same quantity of microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 or LC3, the researchers also brought up another interesting point. That is, since older cells produce more waste, they likely contribute to aging.
Thus, by intermittent fasting and activating autophagy, your body can begin recycling fibroblasts so your collagen production doesn’t slow down. This will result in younger-looking skin. Not only does autophagy benefit your skin, but cell recycling can strengthen your immune system, your digestive system, and other parts of the body as well.
Does Fasting Reverse Aging?
What if you’re new to intermittent fasting and, for years, you admittedly have not taken very good care of your health? Is it possible for fasting to undo some of the damage your body may have accumulated to this point?
Yes, since fasting can produce a type of ketone that can prevent and even reverse vascular aging. We’ll get into that all-important ketone momentarily, but first, let’s make sure you truly understand vascular aging.
All people undergo what is known as vascular aging. As the name might indicate, your vascular age is the age of your heart. Thus, your physical age and your vascular age can be very different. If you’re a smoker, you have diabetes mellitus, high cholesterol, or a history of heart troubles in your family, then your vascular age will typically be higher than your actual age.
Having calcification, high levels of C-reactive proteins, and elevated triglycerides can also contribute to your vascular age. As you can imagine, when your vascular age goes up, your risk of death does as well, even premature death.
How does fasting play a role in your vascular age? To answer that question, let’s look at a study published in the journal Molecular Cell in 2018. That study was spearheaded by Dr. Ming-Hui Zou of Atlanta’s Georgia State University’s Center for Molecular and Translational Medicine.
Dr. Zou has explained that “the most important part of aging is vascular aging.” Therefore, if you can reverse vascular aging, such as through intermittent fasting, then you can reverse normal aging as well.
The study done by Dr. Zou and his team involved mice. Some of the mice had died from atherosclerosis or atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Atherosclerosis is caused by artery wall buildups from substances like cholesterol and fat. The living mice fasted.
Compared to the mice with atherosclerosis, the fasting mice produced more beta-hydroxybutyrate, the ketone that’s so important in vascular aging.
You may remember that we talked about beta-hydroxybutyrate on this blog last week. Also known as BHB, beta-hydroxybutyrate is partially responsible for that feeling of euphoria you get when intermittent fasting.
Outside of that, BHB comes from the liver and can become a replacement source of energy when your body lacks the glucose it regularly uses. As you’re surely aware, glucose is a type of sugar our body produces that also comes from food. When you’re intermittent fasting, by depriving your body of glucose, it uses other energy sources instead, including fat. That’s how you lose weight on your fast.
Dr. Zou and his team discovered that BHB can benefit your blood vessels, causing the cells there to both multiply and, when needed, to divide. When cells can healthily divide, it’s a sign they’re young and strong.
Younger blood vessels mean your vascular age is younger too, so intermittent fast can certainly reduce aging.
Can Fasting Slow Down Aging?
Not only does intermittent fasting affect how you age (or don’t age), but the speed at which it happens as well. How? One of the most promising studies on that topic comes from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University or OIST as written about in Being Patient, an Alzheimer’s resource.
We’ve talked about this study before. Also, as a caveat, we want to note that the research did not involve many participants, only four. Each of those participants went on an intermittent fasting diet. Then, the researchers compared the health of the participants before and after the fast, which went on for 34 to 58 hours.
What did the researchers find? The participants, during intermittent fasting, had more metabolites, at least 44 of them. If you’re not familiar, metabolites are metabolism endproducts. As you age, many of these metabolites decrease, especially ophthalmic acid, leucine, and isoleucine.
To recap, leucine is an amino acid your muscle tissue, fat tissue, and liver rely on. It’s one of the most important metabolites, as experts believe leucine can retain muscle as you get older as well as promote the growth of muscles while other amino acids necessarily cannot.
Isoleucine, as an a-amino acid, helps produce hemoglobin, the red blood cell pigment that has oxygen within. Also thanks to isoleucine, your body gets its endurance, energy, and blood sugar control. The ophthalmate known as ophthalmic acid acts as a biomarker.
The participants in the OIST study had more of these metabolites than when they didn’t fast. The metabolites, especially the three above, may be able to turn around the effects of aging and even help you live a longer life.
Also benefitting the slowdown of aging through intermittent fasting is how your mitochondria change during a fast. Your mitochondria are a type of organelle with dual membranes. Without mitochondria, our bodies would not have the chemical energy required for biochemical reactions.
A 2016 study from Newcastle University in the United Kingdom found that our mitochondria can make fatty acids and carbs break down. This leaves more energy for your body’s cells to use, which can keep them working well. Even if cells were somewhat older then, the extra burst of energy might still promote their efficiency.
Further, the homeostatic state of mitochondria, which they switch between, occurs more often when a subject is intermittent fasting, notes Newcastle University. Yet if the mitochondria have to change to a different state, which is necessary for longevity, intermittent fasting doesn’t interrupt that.
Another perk of fasting for the mitochondria according to the Newcastle University study is that fasting enhances the relationship between mitochondria and peroxisomes.
Peroxisomes are organelles that are part of eukaryotic cells. When peroxisome activity and mitochondria activity intersect, antioxidants increase. As you know from the OIST study, this is to the benefit of your body’s health and longevity, and it’s all possible through intermittent fasting.
Why Do People Look Younger After Weight Loss?
Has a friend or family member of yours ever lost some weight (maybe even through intermittent fasting) and you noticed how much younger they looked? You even asked about it and this friend/family member mentions that they’ve only lost weight, nothing more. They haven’t started on a new skincare regimen or anything like that, so why do they look so much more rejuvenated and young than they did before? Does intermittent fasting have a role in their looks?
Indeed, fasting would have to be one of the primary reasons for this more youthful-looking visage. Several changes to your face as the weight comes off in this area can improve the look of your features. For instance, your eyes may be bigger. Also, you’ll have sharper cheekbones and a better-defined jawline, which definitely does add more youthfulness to your look. Don’t be surprised if your colleagues at work ask what you did to make yourself look younger!
Do keep in mind that weight loss and a younger-looking appearance can be a bit of a double-edged sword. If you’re approaching your 40s, then you might find that losing weight accelerates your aging, making you appear far gaunter than your years would suggest.
Further, in some dieters, the pads of fat under the eyes, or what some people call the under-eye area, do diminish when you lose weight. This can contribute to how old your eyes look. Your face may also have more noticeable wrinkles.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing with weight loss. The method of weight loss you choose definitely matters when it comes to toeing the line between losing weight and aiming to look younger. Intermittent fasting can be one such means of gradual weight loss, especially certain fasting types.
For instance, maybe the intermittent fasting type you most prefer is the 16:8 fast, where you get eight hours a day to eat. This form of fasting can help you lose weight, but not so much where you’ll drop the pounds so quickly that your appearance dramatically changes.
If you find that you have a lot of loose skin after intermittent fasting weight loss, surgery is always one such option. So too is continuing your fasting schedule. It’s like we discussed earlier. When your body undergoes autophagy during intermittent fasting, the fibroblasts that produce collagen can stay healthy. This not only makes your skin look younger, but it can add elasticity to your skin too so it’s less saggy.
Conclusion
If you’re unhappy with who you see when you take a look in the mirror because your skin has fine lines, wrinkles, and crow’s feet, you might want to consider intermittent fasting. When you fast, you activate autophagy so your body can produce more collagen and elastin for younger-looking skin.
Also, through increasing your metabolites, improving mitochondrial functioning, and even warding off vascular aging by fasting, you can both slow and reverse the signs of aging. You can even live longer! If you’ve yet to try an intermittent fast, we hope this post convinces you that fasting is definitely worth doing. Your body will thank you!