Autophagy—literally, “self-eating”—is a fun word for how our body breaks down and recycles dead material inside. You might have come across this term if you’ve searched, “Does intermittent fasting help ADHD?”
The truth is, we don’t have any research on how autophagy specifically affects ADHD, but we do have some theories. Specifically, based on studies on mitochondrial dysfunction and brain inflammation, it appears people with ADHD have differences in how our bodies “clean up” what isn’t working.
And that’s where people believe that supporting autophagy—gently and intentionally—might help relieve some of the underlying stress in ADHD brains.
What is Autophagy?
Imagine your brain is a busy city: Each cell is a building, and inside are thousands of machines working around the clock to keep the lights on, traffic flowing, and communication running. Now imagine that some of those machines break down. They take up space, leak waste, and make the building less efficient. If too many pile up? Power outages, traffic jams, maybe even fires.
Autophagy (pronounced “ah-TAH-fah-gee”) is the city’s sanitation and repair department. It finds broken machinery—damaged proteins, worn-out mitochondria, malfunctioning cell parts—and either recycles or removes them. It’s the body’s maintenance team.
The brain creates a lot of metabolic “trash” because it works so hard for us. When autophagy works well, your brain feels clearer and more focused.
How Autophagy Affects Your ADHD Brain
People with ADHD may experience higher levels of mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, and neuroinflammation. Let’s break it down:
- Mitochondria are the energy-makers in your brain cells. They’re the power plants that fuel everything you experience: energy, focus, movement, and emotions. Mitochondrial dysfunction, therefore, means less energy production.
- Oxidative stress happens when your brain generates more waste than it can clean up, damaging those power plants in the process. Oxidative stress comes from many things, but mainly mitochondria. To create energy, it also creates something called ROS (reactive oxygen species), a buildup of which causes oxidative stress.
- When we have too much oxidative stress in our brain, neuroinflammation acts like a fire alarm going off too often—exhausting your system, disrupting neurotransmitters, and putting more strain on your energy supply.
Without getting too complicated, mitochondria create the specific type of energy we need (ATP) to create our dopamine. Without effective mitochondria, our brains don’t produce enough dopamine. That is where autophagy comes in: it recycles damaged mitochondria, reducing stress in the system, which can theoretically help the other mitochondria work better.
Autophagy also reduces oxidative stress and neuroinflammation. Damaged mitochondria are one of the biggest sources of oxidative stress. Autophagy removes these mitochondria, meaning we reduce oxidative stress. When we reduce our oxidative stress, we reduce our neuroinflammation.
And when we reduce our neuroinflammation, we improve our ADHD symptoms.
ADHD Brain & Autophagy: The Nuance
Here’s the thing- people with ADHD tend to have more oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, and mitochondrial dysfunction than those without. We don’t fully know why, but one theory is that our autophagy systems aren’t working as well as they should. While there’s no solid evidence yet, the fact that ADHD meds have been shown to lower oxidative stress in people with ADHD (but a study shows they make neuroinflammation worse in people without ADHD) suggests something is different between us at the cellular level.
Autophagy happens mainly during fasting hours, which is one reason why sleep is incredibly important. We don’t have any current evidence that intermittent fasting helps ADHD, but it might in theory by encouraging more autophagy. However, there are also risks associated with intermittent fasting, especially for those with ADHD.
If you want to improve your mitochondrial function and reduce your neuroinflammation without removing meals, check out this post on –12 Ways to Reduce ADHD Brain Inflammation Without Fasting
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