Periodic fasting may be good for you

zakur

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Fasting can be good for health, study shows

WASHINGTON - Periodic fasting can be just as good for the health as sharply cutting back on calories, even if the fasting doesn't mean eating less overall, a new study indicates.
Researchers are planning to see if what works in mice is also good for people.

Several recent studies have reported a variety of benefits from a sharply restricted diet, including longer life span, increased insulin sensitivity and stress resistance.

In the new report, mice that were fed only every other day - but could gorge on the days they did eat - saw similar health benefits to ones that had their diet reduced by 40 percent, a team of researchers reports in today's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The cause of health improvements from cutting back on diet isn't fully understood, though many researchers had assumed that a long-term reduction in calories was involved.

But the study by Mark P. Mattson and colleagues at the National Institute on Aging found equal benefits for mice that ate only every other day, but didn't cut total calories because they ate twice as much on days they weren't fasting.
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And from Fasting may be good for you:

Does this mean humans should start skipping meals or fasting for whole days?

Probably not, says Mattson, who says more work needs to be done to see if these results hold true for humans. But, Mattson adds, as long as you're a healthy adult, it's probably OK to skip a meal sometimes, though he doesn't recommend anyone go all day without food.

Samantha Heller, a nutritionist from New York University Medical Center, agrees that more work needs to be done before anyone can recommend a change in the way people are eating.

"This is a preliminary study looking at mice," she says. "There is no data on humans."

Plus, she says, fasting for a day would probably never be a realistic choice for people. "One of the problems with people dieting is they starve themselves and once they start eating again, they can't stop eating," she explains. "It's very hard to make a healthy choice when you get that hungry."
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More stories here.
 
heck - I skip a meal a day almost every day. Sometimes skip two (though I normally eat two - however which 2 varies day to day).

I just dont have the patience to be bothered getting 3 meals a day (not that I cook *any* of them).

Now if only I was a rat (more than metaphorically anyway...)

I long for the day I can swallow a couple of tablets each day and not have to bother about meals at all (except socially of course...)
 
Dear all,

I'm not sure about fasting. I can certainly see how eating less could be beneficial, but only if it isn't intruding on nutritional benefits.

I wonder how a fasting experiment could be double-blinded?

Sincerely,

S. Holmes
 
I'm one of those people that usually eats a meal a day. I snack a lot though!:D
 
Sherlock Holmes said:
Dear all,

I'm not sure about fasting. I can certainly see how eating less could be beneficial, but only if it isn't intruding on nutritional benefits.

I wonder how a fasting experiment could be double-blinded?

Sincerely,

S. Holmes
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Well, I guess you could get people to enroll in the study. Then they could either have a liquid diet with a lot of calories, or a diet with nutrisweet with almost no calories. Of course, they would have to be in a monitored situation for a month or so. The givers of the drinks would not know which drink they were giving the patient. Sound good?
 
Part of my losing a -lot- of weight was not eating meals. I eat all day, little bits at a time. Every time I pass the kitchen, I pick up a banana or an apple or a carrot or a bowl of steamed broccoli. Then, every once in a while I sit down with a big chunk of meat. I stop eating about 3 hours before I sleep, and make sure I eat very little in the 5 hours before sleep all together.

I have found that I always feel much more awake and energetic if I eat little bits at a time all day. Big meals make me feel heavy and bad. So, when I go out to eat, I eat a little an hour before, order something really light (usually a side item, unless I am at one of my favourite gorge restaurants), and eat a little after.

But for fasting an entire day, I feel immense hunger pains at about 20 hours without food. It gets to the point where I can't really stand up without help at about 40. However, this could be due more to my hypoglycemia than anything else :D
 
I once tried fasting for a few days (only water). A friend had a book on "clinical pharmacology" some of it seemed a tad woo-woo, but the idea of letting your system clear itself once in a while seemed sensible. The idea is to find items of your regular diet to which you may be allergic. I'm not allergic to coffee, which was the main thing I missed. Interesting effects though.
12 hours-hungry
18-24,shaky, slightly queasy., worsening.

24-30 I was asleep. Next day I felt rather light. The hunger faded around the 36 hour mark and thereafter it was pretty easy. The feeling of lightness persisted. I felt pretty good, and proud of my self discipline. I went three full days. I still felt ok, but got tired after fairly light exertion.

The first coffee was nectar. Never done it again. Looking at my gut, it's about time I did.
 
Denise said:

Well, I guess you could get people to enroll in the study. Then they could either have a liquid diet with a lot of calories, or a diet with nutrisweet with almost no calories. Of course, they would have to be in a monitored situation for a month or so. The givers of the drinks would not know which drink they were giving the patient. Sound good?
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Dear Denise,

I can tell the difference between soda with and without nutrisweet, however, I don't know if that carries over to other substances.

Sincerely,

S. Holmes
 
Sherlock Holmes said:


Dear Denise,

I can tell the difference between soda with and without nutrisweet, however, I don't know if that carries over to other substances.

Sincerely,

S. Holmes
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There is a substance called Sucralose which tastes exactly like sugar, and has no calories. This is because it is actually made from sugar, but processed in some way that I don't know (mostly because I haven't looked it up!) to remove calories.

I can't tell the difference between iced tea sweetened with it, and iced tea sweetened with sugar. Also, I have not had a single person in almost 2 years ask me ifI used anything but sugar in my baked goods.. and in all that time I never have.

A popular US brand of the stuff is called Splenda.
 
Sherlock Holmes said:
Dear all,

I'm not sure about fasting. I can certainly see how eating less could be beneficial, but only if it isn't intruding on nutritional benefits.

I wonder how a fasting experiment could be double-blinded?

Sincerely,

S. Holmes
Click to expand...

Personally I thinking blinding the participants is completely irrelevant (at the first step) anyway. Its much like blinding the rats - who cares what they know.

Its more important to blind the scientists who would be analyzing a whole bunch of data thats taken pertaining to the subjects' health over time.

And FWIW plenty of good science gets done without double blind experiments. In fact, most of it does...
 
Tez said:


And FWIW plenty of good science gets done without double blind experiments. In fact, most of it does...
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Dear Tez,

I agree with that absolutely 100%.

Sincerely,

S. Holmes
 
Sherlock Holmes said:


Dear Tez,

I agree with that absolutely 100%.

Sincerely,

S. Holmes
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To add, RichardR might disagree with us on that subject.

Sincerely,

S. H.
 
The human data is in, and it is not good. There are no benefits to fasting, moreover there are bad side effects of fasting. Dont take my word for it, look on the NIH office of Alt/Comp medicine. They are finally admitting that most of this nonsense does not work.
 
I have often wondered about this. Lions in Africa will eat 75 pounds of meat at a time, then not eat again for long stretches. And THEY seem to be in great shape.

Then again, chimps, who are obviously much closer relatives, eat little bits of fruit and other foods they round up all day long.

Most diet experts these days will tell you to eat little bits all day, other wise if you skip meals your body goes into "famine" mode. I don´t know if that´s true or not.

Great area for research, though!
 
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