The Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

The original concept for intermittent fasting started in 1934 when two researchers from Cornell University, Mary Crowell and Olive McCay, fed rats a diet that restricted their calories about 30 to 40 percent but contain high amounts of micronutrients. They found that the mice lived longer and had fewer diseases. By 1986 two more scientists, Roy Walford and his student Richard Weindruch did more investigation into calorie restriction and aging. They found that rats lived almost 60 percent longer if they started a calorie-restricted diet before they were six months old. They lived 10 to 20 percent longer if they did it as adults. They published their efforts in a book called, The Retardation of Aging and Disease by Dietary Restriction.

A problem made the study difficult to transfer to human use. Since the rats started on the diet before they reached maturity, they suffered from smaller stature and development. It just wasn't ethical to do this to small children, no matter how long you thought you'd extend their life or improve their health. Also, getting humans to stay on a severely calorie restricted diet for most of their life seemed impossible.

In order to solve the problem, they looked at what the calorie restriction did to the body to keep the rats so young and svelte. The researchers found they could accomplish the same thing with intermittent fasting, or eating light one day and normally the next. In doing research for intermittent fasting, I found that some people simply skip breakfast and lunch every other day.

Controlled studies show that two other dietary and lifestyle changes produce the same benefits as alternative fasting. The first is the highly touted resveratrol that comes from grapes and dark skinned fruit and vegetables. While much ado was made of the resveratrol in red wine, you don't have to have a drink every night to benefit from it. You can reap the benefits and many others from eating grapes, drinking grape juice, eating other dark berries like blackberries and cranberries and eating peanuts. Not only do you get plenty of the nonflavonoid, resveratrol, you also get plenty of flavonoids from these foods that act as antioxidants to help protect your body from free radicals.

As with all studies, there's always one's that show differing and opposing results. While intermittent fasting lowers the blood sugar in men and lowers insulin resistance, it increases insulin resistance in women according to another study. All studies however, showed that both calorie restriction and intermitted fasting help prevent brain aging and aging of the nervous system. The neurons require a brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) to maintain and grow new neurons for learning and memory. Both calorie restriction and intermittent fasting elevate the BDNF levels. Amazingly low impact exercise also does.

Taking all those facts in consideration, my plan is to do both fasting on one day and exercise the eating day. Everything goes back to our creation and the survival of man. While I'm a fan of the intelligent design theory, I also realize that genetically, those who hunted well and ate well survived and reproduced. It seems that if we simply eat like our ancestors, we'd have the genes already turned on for a longer life span. I seriously doubt Twinkies were available in cave days. We'd find them perfectly preserved and ready to eat if they were.

From all the studies, I guess my lifestyle wasn't that unhealthy. Perhaps heavy caffeine consumption and cigarettes aren't part of the food pyramid, but the eating pattern was there. Now I simply have to add exercise and remove all refined sugar from my diet. I'll miss the sugar.

Mayo Clinic: Red wine and resveratrol: Good for your heart?
AlanArgon.com: An Objective Look at Intermittent Fasting

The Life Extension Pathway, Resveratrol etc. and Cancer Control: Mitochondrial Biogenesis Duality, the Metabolic Mechanism and Practical Applications.

Gregory S. Bambeck Ph.D. and Michael Wolfson J.D., M.B.A.

Kent, Ohio U.S.A.:

Calorie Restriction (CR) Society International

National Institute on Aging: Can We Prevent Aging?
Calorie Restriction and Intermittent Fasting: Two Potential Diets for Successful Brain Aging Bronwen Martin,Mark P. Mattson, and Stuart Maudsley

Science Daily: Alternate-Day Fasting: How Good Is It For Your Health?