What is mitophagy?
Mitophagy is the process your cells use to find worn-out mitochondria, break them down and recycle their parts.
Think of mitophagy as a garbage truck for broken power plants. It hauls away the damaged ones so they stop leaking problems and make room for new ones. When the truck comes less often, the junk piles up.
Why it matters for aging
The name combines "mito" (from mitochondria, the power plants inside your cells) and "phagy", from the Greek for "eating". It's a specialized form of autophagy, the cell's general recycling system, focused only on mitochondria.
A damaged power plant isn't just useless. It can leak harmful molecules and send stress signals that inflame the rest of the cell. So clearing it out quickly is part of keeping the whole cell healthy.
With age, mitophagy tends to slow, and worn-out mitochondria build up, especially in long-lived cells like muscle fibers and nerve cells. Scientists link this to two of the twelve hallmarks of aging: disabled cellular recycling and failing mitochondria. That's why compounds and habits that restart mitophagy are a major focus of longevity research.
A common myth
You can't do anything about cellular cleanup. It just slows down with age.
Mitophagy responds to how you live. Exercise is the best-established natural trigger, and energy stress such as fasting activates it in animal studies. Some compounds, like urolithin A, switch it on too, with early human evidence.
Go deeper
Deep dives
- Does urolithin A work? What the human trials actually show
- The first part of you to break isn't in your nucleus
- Why am I always tired after 40? The upstream answer
Related terms
Updated Nov 7, 2026 · All terms