Metformiinin anti ageing-vaikutukset perustuvat autofagiaan.
https://medium.com/personal-growth/auto ... 7db3e8af8cLainaa:
Metformin, a drug widely used in type 2 diabetes, also activates autophagy but not through mTOR. It increases AMPK, a molecule that signals the energy status of the cell. If AMPK is high, the cell knows that it has insufficient energy and increases autophagy. AMPK senses the ADP/ATP ratio, thus knowing the cellular energy levels — sort of like a fuel gauge but in reverse. High AMPK, low cellular energy status. High AMPK levels directly and indirectly activate autophagy, but also mitochondrial production.
Mitophagy is the selective targeting of defective or dysfunctional mitochondrion. These are the parts of the cell that produce energy — the power houses. If these are not working properly, then the process of mitophagy targets them for destruction. The critical regulators of this process includes the notorious tumor suppressor gene PTEN. This may initially seem bad, remember that, at the same time that mitophagy is increased, new mitochondrion are being stimulated to grow. AMPK for example, will stimulate mitophagy as well as new mitochondrion growth — essentially replacing old mitochondrion with new ones in a renewal process. This is fantastic — essentially a complete renovation of the mitochondrial pool. Break down the old, junky mitochondrion and stimulate the body to build new ones. This is one of the reasons metformin is commonly promoted as an anti-aging compound — not so much for its blood sugar effects, but instead because of its effect on AMPK and autophagy.