Intermittent Fasting - benefits on Health, Aging, and Disease
Evidence is accumulating that eating in a 6-hour period and fasting for 18 hours can trigger a metabolic switch in our cellular energy, resulting in increased stress resistance, increased longevity, and a decreased incidence of diseases, including cancer and obesity.
One of the oldest health therapies on the planet is fasting. The combination of reducing calories and stimulating a metabolic switch from food to fast stimulates a regenerative process that helps reduce inflammation, repair the nervous system, improve insulin function and impair cancer growth. With the epidemic diseases associated with too many calories, any therapy that will encourage reducing this excess is going to have significant benefits for many people.
With so many health benefits for fasting, I thought I would provide a concise summary of the basics of fasting for our readers.
Intermittent Fasting
There are few therapies that research has found to both prolong life while also positively treating many diseases. Fasting has been found to benefit diabetes, heart disease, memory loss, weight and even cancer. The benefit comes from both reducing calories and encouraging the body to switch between fasting and eating.
Fasting can be challenging at first and is best used as a gradual process adopted over time. At the Center for Integrative Healing & Wellness, we have extensive experience with nutrition and implementing a fasting regimen, so contact us if more support is needed.
Time Restricted Feeding Methods
A good way to start
At least 12 hours of fasting is needed for benefit. You can start avoiding food for a 12-hour period of time such as 7 pm to 7 am. This is likely the easiest and least intrusive to common eating patterns.
The Optimal Method
Fasting 16-18 hrs a day has been found to be most effective fasting method for improving health. This requires food to be consumed within 6-8 hrs a day.
5:2 Intermittent Fasting Method
Research has demonstrated that, similar to the 6-8 hrs of restricted feeding, fasting two days a week and eating regularly for 5 days has also been found to be very effective in improving health. This may better suite your needs and lifestyle, and be more easily implemented. The goal here is to reduce to 500 calories a day for two days a week. It is best to choose two days to fast apart from each other such as Mondays and Thursdays.
Working Your Way Up
When starting this therapy, may people can experience hunger, irritability and difficulty concentrating. But these symptoms generally resolve after the few weeks of fasting. Here is an example schedule to ease into a fasting regimen over time:
Month
1
2
3
4 (Goal)
Time-Restricted Feeding
10 hr feeding pattern 5 days/week
8 hr feeding pattern 5 days/week
6 hr feeding pattern 5 days/week
6 hr feeding pattern 7 days/week
5:2 Intermittent Fasting
1000 Calories 1 day a week
1000 Calories 2 days a week
750 Calories 2 days a week
500 Calories 2 days a week
It is important that you regularly visit with an integrative physician or nutritionist during this process to make sure you are doing this in a healthy way. With time we may also be able to remove some of your medications!
This article is informed by the following recent paper, deCabo R, Mattson MP. Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Health, Aging, and Disease. NEJM 381;26. December 26, 2019