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PILLAR 6—JUNK BUILDUP INSIDE CELLS

Okay, so waste products can build up outside of your cells, but the good news is that nearly all the cells in your body have their own built-in waste disposal system called a lysosome. Your lysosomes incinerate unwanted materials of all kinds, keeping your cells free of junk and able to function optimally.

You knew there was a but coming, right? When the lysosome can’t break down certain materials to incinerate them, the waste products end up just sitting there, clogging up the cell until it can no longer function. The name for this is intracellular aggregation. If this happens to too many of your cells, you end up with Pillar 1—loss of cells and tissue atrophy.

There are two reasons this might happen. The first is if the lysosome itself is damaged and can’t function properly. Lysosomes rely on over sixty types of enzymes to break down waste products, and mutations in the genes for these enzymes can prevent the lysosome from doing its job. These organelles can also be damaged by an excess of reactive oxygen species—free radicals—which happens when your mitochondria aren’t working efficiently.