angry, known affectionately as being “hangry.” This
sensation is owed in part to a brain that has become the
equivalent of a man-eating alien from outer space. Ever the
obedient servant—and the Seymour in our Shop of Horrors
analogy—the liver triggers a process called
gluconeogenesis, which translates to “new sugar creation.”
As nature’s ultimate recycling plant, the liver kills two
birds with one stone—when the body runs out of sugar, the
liver will take worn-out, dysfunctional proteins from around
the body, disassemble them into their constituent amino
acids, and burn them off.^4 (Chopped liver? In reality, your
liver is doing the chopping, dicing up proteins and turning
them into sugar.) Brain fed, body cleaned. This ability of
our bodies to “clean house” as a means of cellular
rejuvenation is called autophagy, and is currently an
exciting area of focus for longevity researchers.
When you experience regular periods of feeding and
fasting, autophagy occurs on a daily basis. Today,
unfortunately, we seldom allow it to, with the lever jammed
permanently in feeding mode. But even though it is a
desirable process, without a system of biological checks and
balances, it could get out of hand quickly. Your skeletal
muscle (like your biceps or quads, or, heaven forbid, your
glutes) could become a target for gluconeogenesis, seeing as
how they are essentially big protein “banks.”
Breaking down muscle wouldn’t exactly be desirable for
a hungry hunter-gatherer. During periods of famine, this
also wouldn’t buy you very much time—to support the
brain’s metabolic requirements with protein alone would
lead to death in about ten miserable days.^5 To prevent this, a