Left: Professor Tamotsu Yoshimori, Right: Professor Yoshinori Oshsumi

The Japan Autophagy Consortium has established the world’s first  ‘Autophagy Day’ to increase public awareness about autophagy or cellular renewal and the Nobel Prize winning science showing how essential this is to human health and healthy longevity.

Autophagy Day will be held on the 12th of February, the 60th anniversary of the term being used, and will focus on how everyone can activate autophagy, with huge potential to slow down or even reverse some of the pathways down which we age, such as stem cell and mitochondrial dysfunction, epigenetic changes, shortened telomeres and inflammation.

The Japan Autophagy Consortium will hold a press conference, a commemorative event for the public (live-streaming in Japanese on February 12th), and release on-demand media for the purpose of educating people about autophagy. This will include topics such as ‘Autophagy: Toward the realization of a healthy long-lived society.’

Professor Tamotsu Yoshimori, the world’s leading scientific expert in cell renewal in mammals, will chair the event.

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Yoshimori says: “We are pleased to establish Autophagy Day this year, which is exactly 60 years since the term autophagy was first used in science. May this day be a symbol of a future in which autophagy is not only a field of basic research but also a new commercial sector, contributing to the wellness of the people around the world. ”

Oxford University Emeritus Professor of Physiology Denis Noble, scientific adviser to Oxford Healthspan, an Oxford, England based company promoting autophagy-inducing products and the only non-Japanese member of the Japan Autophagy Consortium, says:

“It’s remarkable that a country would declare a national day devoted to a physiological breakthrough like the body’s innate ability to clean and recycle cells, but it’s not at all surprising that it’s Japan doing it. In the last decade they have had at least 3 Nobel prizes in Medicine or Physiology to do with Healthspan, including Prof Yoshinori Ohsumi’s award for autophagy.

Raising the public’s awareness of these discoveries and how everyone can use lifestyle habits like better sleep, exercise, fasting and supplementing with autophagy activators like spermidine to access them is key to having a healthier population.”

The Japan Autophagy Consortium is a non-profit organization that works for the further development of research in the field of autophagy, which Japan continues to lead the world and where Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi, their Chief Advisor, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2016.

About Oxford HealthspanOxford Healthspan formulate and manufacture premium spermidine supplements based on scientific research. They also sponsor The Oxford Longevity Project, a series of public service webinars around the latest scientific breakthroughs around autophagy and aging.

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