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Fasting cures blindness. try it. Could fasting for two days a week prevent age-related brain shrinkage, heart disease, diabetes, and possibly even cancer? New research suggests that fasting triggers …More
Fasting cures blindness.
try it.
Could fasting for two days a week prevent age-related brain shrinkage, heart disease, diabetes, and possibly even cancer? New research suggests that fasting triggers a variety of health-promoting hormonal and metabolic changes. Fasting - quantified as consuming somewhere between 500 and 800 calories in a day - has been shown to reduce:
Growth factor - a hormone linked with cancer and diabetes
"Bad" LDL cholesterol
Cholesterol
Inflammation levels
Overall, it also helps lessen damage from free radicals (dangerous molecules that cause damage in your body). Furthermore, according to the featured article in the Daily Maili:
"Suddenly dropping your food intake dramatically... triggers protective processes in the brain... similar to the beneficial effect you get from exercise.This could help protect the brain against degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's."
Intermittent Fasting: A Good Alternative to Constant Calorie Restriction
While it's long been known that restricting calories in certain animals can increase their lifespan by as much as 50 percent, more recent research suggests that sudden and intermittent calorie restriction appears to provide the same health benefits as constant calorie restriction.
This is good news, as it may be easier to do for some people who cannot commit to chronically restrictive diet. The Daily Mail reports:
"Professor Mattson is one of the pioneers of research into fasting - a few years ago he made a breakthrough when he found rats could get nearly all the benefits of calorie restriction if the scientists only cut back their calories every other day.
On the next day the rats could eat as much as they liked and yet they showed the same benefits as rats on a low-calorie regimen all the time. Suddenly it looked as if humans could benefit from a form of calorie restriction regimen that, unlike daily restriction, is feasible to follow.
Now results of other trials are revealing the benefits.
In one study, reported last year in the International Journal of Obesity, a group of obese and overweight women was put on a diet of 1,500 calories a day while another group was put on a very low 500-calorie diet for two days, then 2,000 calories a day for the rest of the week. Both groups were eating a healthy Mediterranean-style diet. '
We found that both lost about the same amount of weight and both saw a similar drop in biomarkers that increase your risk of cancer,' says Dr Michelle Harvie, a dietitian at Manchester University who led the research.
'The aim was to find which was the most effective and we found that the women in the fasting group actually had a bigger improvement in sensitivity to insulin.' Improved insulin sensitivity means better control of blood sugar levels."
try it.
Could fasting for two days a week prevent age-related brain shrinkage, heart disease, diabetes, and possibly even cancer? New research suggests that fasting triggers a variety of health-promoting hormonal and metabolic changes. Fasting - quantified as consuming somewhere between 500 and 800 calories in a day - has been shown to reduce:
Growth factor - a hormone linked with cancer and diabetes
"Bad" LDL cholesterol
Cholesterol
Inflammation levels
Overall, it also helps lessen damage from free radicals (dangerous molecules that cause damage in your body). Furthermore, according to the featured article in the Daily Maili:
"Suddenly dropping your food intake dramatically... triggers protective processes in the brain... similar to the beneficial effect you get from exercise.This could help protect the brain against degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's."
Intermittent Fasting: A Good Alternative to Constant Calorie Restriction
While it's long been known that restricting calories in certain animals can increase their lifespan by as much as 50 percent, more recent research suggests that sudden and intermittent calorie restriction appears to provide the same health benefits as constant calorie restriction.
This is good news, as it may be easier to do for some people who cannot commit to chronically restrictive diet. The Daily Mail reports:
"Professor Mattson is one of the pioneers of research into fasting - a few years ago he made a breakthrough when he found rats could get nearly all the benefits of calorie restriction if the scientists only cut back their calories every other day.
On the next day the rats could eat as much as they liked and yet they showed the same benefits as rats on a low-calorie regimen all the time. Suddenly it looked as if humans could benefit from a form of calorie restriction regimen that, unlike daily restriction, is feasible to follow.
Now results of other trials are revealing the benefits.
In one study, reported last year in the International Journal of Obesity, a group of obese and overweight women was put on a diet of 1,500 calories a day while another group was put on a very low 500-calorie diet for two days, then 2,000 calories a day for the rest of the week. Both groups were eating a healthy Mediterranean-style diet. '
We found that both lost about the same amount of weight and both saw a similar drop in biomarkers that increase your risk of cancer,' says Dr Michelle Harvie, a dietitian at Manchester University who led the research.
'The aim was to find which was the most effective and we found that the women in the fasting group actually had a bigger improvement in sensitivity to insulin.' Improved insulin sensitivity means better control of blood sugar levels."