Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - 3 Foods That Increase Autophagy Without Fasting

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

Dr. Mindy dives into autophagy, that amazing natural way our cells clean house. While fasting is a top way to kickstart it, this episode shares three delicious foods that can actually give autophagy a boost even when you're not fasting: pineapple (thanks to bromelain), turmeric (with its powerful curcumin), and green tea (packed with EGCG). These goodies can help with things like keeping your arteries clear, making your skin glow, and maybe even fighting off certain cancers. Embrace the magic of autophagy with 3 game-changing foods! To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://drmindypelz.com/ep290   Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

Okay, let's talk about autophagy, which for those of you that are new to my channel, autophagy is like one of the favorite subjects that people keep coming back to over and over again here on the channel. And the first thing I have to just say is that I love that people even know the word autophagy, that they're even searching the word autophagy because not everybody geeks out on autophagy like I do. So I really want to talk about three foods. that can increase autophagy. And this is important because a lot of you don't want to fast, although I'm not sure why you would have come to my channel if you didn't want to fast.

I am definitely a fan of fasting, but there's a lot of other great pieces of information here. So if you don't want to fast, you're going to want to pay attention to these three foods. And then I know that there's a group of you that are like, but I love atophagy. I love how I feel. Like I can see that I'm like the fountain of youth. I've dipped myself in the fountain of youth because I've been stimulating autophagy.

How do I keep autophagy going when I'm eating and not fasting? So here we go. We're going to dive into the three foods that are going to increase autophagy without fasting. So let's go. Welcome to the Resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in your sense. self again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Okay, first thing, for those of you, they're like,

what the heck is autophagy? Let me just explain that autophagy is exactly as you kind of break it down, if you break the word down. Auto and phagy means self-eating. So it is what has, happens to our miraculous body when there are minimal nutrients coming in. And I'll talk about those nutrients in a moment. When we don't have as many nutrients coming into the system, the body, and even a little bit with glucose too, what the body will do is it goes, wait a second, we need to clean up this cell. We need to make sure that this cell is a better cell because we're not getting nutrients in. Now, what's really interesting, so for those of you that have been like autophagy geeks for a while, I really want you to think about this, that the main nutrient

that kicks you out of autophagy are amino acids. Because whenever we have any kind of protein coming into the system, we move to the opposite of autophagy, which is a pathway called mTOR. MTOR is a growth pathway and autophagy is a destruction pathway. It's getting, think of autophagy as getting rid of the old. It's like spring cleaning for yourselves. So when we want to activate atopathy, we need to keep the amino acid load down, which means we need to keep protein down. So for a lot of us, we stimulate atopathy by metabolically switching.

over into these fasted states and we bring glucose down, we bring nutrients down, and autophagy kicks in. I can tell you in the decades of researching autophagy that what we see is fasting is absolutely the best way to stimulate autophagy. And it's because you're bringing nutrients down and glucose down. But when you go back into that sugar burner place, when you're back into that place where you're eating again as long as you keep amino acids down, you can keep yourself in this spring cleaning state. And here are three foods based off science. I'll give you the links. I'll report the science. Here are the three foods that will help accelerate this spring cleaning within yourselves. Ready? Again, first one's actually my favorite fruit and it may surprise you

because it's not very ketogenic, and it's pineapple. And the reason that pineapple can stimulate autophagy is because of its main nutrient bromoline. So bromoline is an enzyme, and enzymes create cellular reactions. So nutrients, they come in and they help with cellular reactions, but enzymes actually are like a catalyst for a cellular reaction. So bromoline is an enzyme that instantly turns on autophagy, and it starts that process. And so what research is showing is that bromoline in pineapple, pineapple is the best food on the planet for bromoline, massively speeds up atopathy, and it starts to activate autophagy throughout the whole body. Okay, this is really important because a lot of times we don't think of these cellular

healing processes as being organ dependent or system dependent. But you'll see as I go into the other two foods that, yes, some foods specifically stimulate autophagy in organ systems. But bromoline stimulates autophagy throughout the whole body. And there was a 22 study in a journal called antioxidants that found that bromoline turned on autophagy within your arteries and it started to clear away plaque, reducing the risk of heart disease. So this is really important because a lot of you think, oh, I really want you to think this through. A lot of you are coming to my channel because you want to bring your hemoglobin A1C down. You want to bring your cardiometabolic system back into balance, but maybe for years and years and years, you've been way focused on eating the wrong foods that have

been creating placking. So now you stop eating the food. foods, you start fasting, your hemoglobin A1C comes down, but you still have the placking. So when we add something like pineapple into our eating windows, now all of a sudden we've got a tool to be able to start to go after that plaqueing on the sidewalk. Now here's another really cool study that I found. It's a 2024 review. Now keep in mind if you're not familiar with science, there are reviews are when they look at a bunch of different studies together and they come up with a conclusion. And in this 2024 review from Nutrients Journal, it's a big journal within the peer reviewed world, notes that bromoline

also activates, you love this, autophagy in the skin cells. So, you know, I've seen this a lot with fasting where people will come to fasting and they're like within a couple of days, like a three-day water faster, like, oh my gosh, my skin is glowing and it has a whole new color. And I've noticed that in my own self. And that's because autophagy is cleaning up the good. It's like a facial, an interfacial for you. Well, again, when we go back into the eating window, if we start to introduce pineapple or maybe even do a little bit of pineapple juice, not too much, make sure it's organic, make sure it's fresh, it's not concentrated, you are going to now amplify the atophagus. within your skin cells and specifically this review noted that it not only

replaced the old and damaged cells within the skin but that it also improved skin texture which is interesting put in the comments because I think a lot of you notice this as you fast that your skin gets softer something I've noticed like especially in the longer fast I just kind of go yeah wow my skin feels really soft that's because of itophoge think of them like little man, they're like cleaning up the skin. And so you're going to notice a different level of softness. And then the last one that I'm going to tell you on bromoline is that there was a 2010 study in biofactors that found that bromuline may even kill breast cancer cells. So it turned on

autophagy to such a high degree. This is what this study is saying in cancer cells that they completely self-destructed. Now, remember, your body's intelligent. So it's not going to do this to healthy cells. The body's always going to try to get rid of the old and bring in the new. So again, bringing this bromoline factor in, bringing the pineapple back in, we start to amplify autophagy outside of the fasting window, helping cardiovascular placking, helping skin. And now we have a study here showing that it can actually kill breast cancer cells.

So really cool. But all three of those studies are impressive to me. And I will tell you as somebody who does like to go more keto, that I'll splash some pineapple juice. If I'm on a beach in Hawaii, I'm going to be eating tons of pineapple, fresh pineapple, always getting fresh, always getting organic, and not doing it every day. That's sort of the general rule I have for pineapple as much as I love it. Okay.

The second food for autophagy is turmeric. And specifically curcumin. which is really this high antioxidant that can do a lot of miraculous things. I think most people know turmeric and curcumin as anti-inflammatory, but it actually can help with topogy. Tumric and curcumin have been known for cognitive function. They've been known for inflammation. But there's a 2016 study in the biotechnology advances that found curcumin is specifically good

at increasing mitophagy. Okay, not to get too complicated, but every single aspect of your body specifically down to your cells has its own unique version of atophagy. And so mito, those have you been following me for a while, what is mito? What do you think that's going to mean?

Mitophagy is where we are seeing the self-healing of the mitochondria. Now, this is really important because the mitochondria are the battery of your cells. They're what give you energy, energy to heal, energy to function. They also are upregulating glutathione within the cell, so they're helping your cells detox. So when we're doing daily bouts of curcumin or turmeric, this would be one that I would recommend you do daily. You could also even do this in your fasting window to amplify it, you are actually encouraging these mitochondria, these little powerhouses, to clean themselves up. And that's exactly what this study found, that during mitophagy, your cells destroy dysfunctional mitochondria. Ooh, this is an important one.

I have to tell you this because this is one that doesn't get spoken of enough. When a cell decides to become a cancer cell. What happens is the toxins and the inner workings of the cells hijacked the mitochondria. And when they hijack the mitochondria, the mitochondria go rogue. And instead of making ATP, they make lactic acid, which is what causes a lot of the soreness. So when we're doing daily turmeric or curcumin, what's happening is you're getting rid of the dysfunctional mitochondria. cleaning up these dysfunctional mitochondria so that they don't turn on you and become cancer cells. And not only are you getting more energy, more healing energy, but you're getting these mitochondria to work for you when you start to stimulate this mitophagy.

We have another study, a 2023 study in signal transduction and targeted therapy that noted that mitophagy specifically is especially important for healthy aging and preventing fatigy. Think of it like this. Your mitochondria are bombarded with toxins, with stress, with emotional traumas, and they start to power down. And as they power down, now certain body parts don't work right. You don't have energy. Your brain doesn't have energy. And so when we can stimulate mitophagy, we can bring all of that back. Curcumin specifically turns on mitochondrial biogenesis, which is a way of saying that it will stimulate the new growth of new mitochondria and start to strengthen the existing ones. I hope you all know that turmeric is bulletproof. I've been studying this stuff for decades, and I cannot find anything wrong with turmeric. I think the most important thing about turmeric is that we always have it with black pepper,

because it increases curcumin's bioavailability by 2,000 percent. So please make sure that you are having curcumin or turmeric, whether it's supplements or whether it's in food, make sure there's black pepper in there because it's like activates it. Okay, the third one and last one is also an amazing herb, or it's actually a tea, which is green tea. And green tea has a lot of polyphenols, and they are really good at not only helping with inflammation and brain function and with gut health, but one of the main ingredients of green tea, I'm going to try to pronounce this, but from this point far, we're only going to use the initials. It's called the epigalogalachigans, eGGGGG, and that is the main active ingredient. And that is the main active

ingredient of green tea, and it's especially good for autophagy. There are two studies I'll bring to your attention. A 2019 in nutrients found that green tea turned on widespread atophagy. So throughout the whole body, reducing inflammation throughout your whole body and regenerating in healing cells, every single cell in the body the study found when it was exposed to green tea, the cell activated autophagy. And then there was another great study in the 2019 anti-cancer research found that EGCG really specifically helps with colorectal cancer cells. I'm trying to talk today. And it destroys them. So think about this for a moment. You could definitely look at green tea and turmeric and curcumin. You could look at those in your fasting window to accelerate this atophagy process. You can always

also put them in your eating window and you're still, if you kept that protein down, you kept those amino acids down, you would still be stimulating autophagy. So just those of you that are experienced fosters, hopefully this helps. What I love when I look at studies like this and I look into research like this is we're not out of answers. We're never out of answers. The body is always doing the right thing at the right time. And if you're building dis-ease or you have a chronic condition and you feel like your body's turned on you. It's just because your lifestyle has not been incongruence with how the body wants to be treated. It's literally that simple. So what you can do is when you listen to videos like this is come back to some simplicity,

which is nature's provided us a lot of incredible resources so that we can not only heal ourselves, but we can stimulate these natural processes that are going through our system. And I'm always going to hold this line that the sugar burner system's great, the fat burner system's great, and our job is to metabolically switch. Typically, what I've taught you all is when we switch over into the fat burner state, that we are now stimulating autophagy. But what I'm hoping you're gathering from a video like this is we also, when we switch back to the sugar burner system, that we can keep that stimulation of autophagy going.

Make sense? Okay, three questions that got sent in. So if you have a question, put in the comments. I'm answering them now on these videos. Also, many of these questions came from my reset academy, which is a membership group where me and my team of coaches and master experts are teaching women specifically how to heal themselves and how to build a lifestyle that works for them. So if you're interested in that, we'll leave links for that. But here we go. Three different questions. I'm going to go through these really fast. The first is what herbs naturally boost autophaging.

So we did just talk about green tea. I kind of consider that and curcumin. Those are herbaceous. But I do want to point out that there are a lot of really other interesting herbs. So berberine is one. You'll see a lot of those in supplements. The other one that I've leaned into a lot is Bergmont. Here's a funny little thing.

Many of you know that bee minerals is one. of my favorite companies. I just love the heart of the people. I love the products. And they have this thing that's called a happy light spray. I'm just telling you this because I love it. And it's bergamont in it. And so I keep it by my desk and I spray it on myself. It smells really good. I wish you could smell it. But bergamont in any way into the body is always going to have this self-cleaning effect. We also know herb-wise. We can look at ginger. We can look at garlic, cinnamon. Cinnamon's going to boost your metabolism. So you're not out of herbs. The list is long. And don't, you know, I think there's a tendency when something comes from the earth and it's so simple.

We dismiss its potency. And I'm going to ask you to not do that when you hear these things because we've overcomplicated health. And it's really important that we come back to what the earth and nature has provided for us. The last herb and the most famous one, for autophagy as resveratrol. You can get resveratrol in, I know what you many of you are thinking in wine, but that would be a little counterbalance, not like you can drink wine every night and the fountain of youth kicks in. So we can look at grapes and berries as being a really good source of resveratrol. So those are just some notes to think about. The second question was, are there other ways to get the benefits of autophagy? Yeah, I've done some

videos on that. I will leave the links to those videos here. Hit training. We've talked a lot about hit training. My new book's going to have some fun things on hit training. But that hit training where you're like sucking air, you're like, that will stimulate autophagy. That's one of my favorite ways that I'll throw out here is the way in which you exercise matters. And then the third question that was asked was, how does autophagy help with aging and longevity? So this is really important. And if you've made it this far through the video, thank you. And what I want you to know is that we are in a real health crisis. It doesn't matter where you live in the world. But there are so many things that are speeding up aging, speeding up disease, and shortening longevity.

So if you're doing nothing, you are actually on a collision course with chronic disease. The statistics are working against you. So we've got to turn to things like autophagy, and we have to find ways to naturally stimulate them throughout the day. So it helps with aging because it takes these cells that are aging very quickly, and it cleans them up, and it slows that aging process down. So, for example, let's use like, well, let's use the liver. The liver is a great one.

your liver will actually recirculate about, I think the last statistic I saw is that it's like every year your liver cells will regenerate themselves. So what that means is if you have an old cell in the liver and it goes to regenerate itself, it will regenerate old cells. Whereas if you stimulate that cell yet clean it up, when it goes to regenerate, it will regenerate a more youthful cell. So by doing autophagy on a regular basis, what you're doing is you're literally creating an internal fountain of youth. You don't need to be spending thousands of dollars on all these products when you have it within your own body. So, and that's, I mean, I could go on and on about autophagy, but it is one, this is why my whole YouTube channel was built off of this term

and people wanting to understand it. So hopefully that was helpful. And because, so many of you are so educated on everything that I teach here, but specifically autophagy, put in the comments if what your favorite way to stimulate atophange is. I want people to understand as much information about this powerful internal healing response. So if you have other great ways to stimulate atopathy, please put it in the comments. But please know, autophagy isn't necessarily about finding the perfect supplement. Itopathy is about doing the right lifestyle choices so that you can stimulate it from within. Makes sense.

Okay. Hope that helped. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.