The 2016 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine goes to the discovery that … wait for it … your body is eating itself. Autophagy, fully described in the 1990s by Japanese biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi, is how cells recycle damaged, diseased, or worn-out bits of microscopic machinery into new, fully functional organic stuff.

Autophagy is a crucial part of your health. Whether through physical trauma, infection, or just age, your cells are constantly getting damaged. Without this biological recycling process, your body would quickly clutter up with busted-down cellular parts. Diseases like Parkinson’s and some types of cancer are caused when autophagy breaks down. It’s also how humans survive starvation, because it allows the body to cannibalize itself for energy.

Biologists have known that cells recycle themselves for a while. But Ohsumi’s work in the 1990s—while he was a junior researcher at the University of Tokyo—identified the genes and metabolic pathways that trigger autophagy. His pioneering work opened up a whole new branch of biology looking into how bodies use (or fail to use) self-cannibalization to stay healthy.

In addition to international acclaim, Sweden’s Karolinksa Institute awarded Ohsumi nearly $1 million for his discovery on Monday, October 3. The institute will announce the Nobel Prize in Physics on October 4, and Chemistry on October 5.