Fasting, Longevity and the Mitochondrial Connection
Fasting, autophagy and mitochondial health are all connected
To understand a disease properly, you need to focus on finding the right level. This is a ‘forest for the trees’ problem. Think about Google Maps. If you zoom in too closely, you will miss what you are looking for. If you look at a map of your neighborhood, you can’t see where Greenland is. Similarly, if you zoom out too far, the same problem exists. Suppose I am looking for my house, but I look at a map of the world. Good idea. But where’s my city? Where is my street? Where is my house? It’s impossible to tell, because we are not looking at the right scale or level.
The same problem exists in medicine, as human diseases occur at different levels. For example, if we are examining a gun shot wound and zoom in too closely to look at the genetic makeup of the victim, we will miss the sucking chest wound that is obviously killing our patient. By the same token, if we are dealing with a genetic disease such as Fabry’s disease, looking at the chest wall will not give us much clue as to what is going on. We must zoom in to the genetic level in order to get a clue.
