I have been an advocate and supporter of my clients fasting for many years ( and personally practiced daily fasting for over 8 years)
Fasting comes in different forms, but may not be suitable for everyone, or needs to be modified depending on your individual health circumstances.
Fasting has been shown to not only help many health conditions, but also be transformative in reversing some illnesses.
These conditions include diabetes , weight loss, concussion, inflammatory bowel disease and various auto-immune diseases.
The simplest form of fasting (known as TRE – time restricted eating in research) has also been shown to improve results in diabetes and reduce some serious side effects when undertaken with many conventional cancer treatments.
A recently published trial in diabetics, showed double the weight loss , with the same improvement in blood sugar control when compared to calorie restriction. This is a common occurrence in my clients as well.
In my experience some try to start with extreme fasting???
With my personal experience of fasting, and experience supporting clients, I have developed supplement protocols to enhance the results of fasting, which may also make it easier to follow.
Many people are even surprised to hear that targeted fasting can improve muscle mass and lead to healthy weight gain!!
Regular fasting activates cell signaling pathways and integrated adaptive responses between and within organs that increase the expression of antioxidant defenses, DNA repair, protein quality control, mitochondrial biogenesis, autophagy, and reduces inflammation [39].
From watching social media, there seems to be a race to promote the most extreme, or difficult forms of fasting. And if you don’t do this, you will not get the benefits. THIS IS WRONG!
Multiple human trials/studies have now shown the serious health benefits of just DAILY, 13 hour overnight fasting.
FASTING works by switching on our innate body systems and repair and recycling. Known as autophagy, this process clears away damaged cellular components, allowing our body to effectively eliminate and reuse these damaged cellular components.
This is why it can potently reverse chronic health diseases and even reverse ageing!
Fasting also stimulates a process called Mitophagy. This is the process of repairing damaged or defective Mitochondria, Mitochondria, present in each cell, produces the energy for our cells to grow, repair and protect themselves. Mitophagy is this process of their repair and expansion, increasing your energy production capacity and stimulating the growth of our cellular energy power centre.
Damage and loss of mitochondria is increasingly been shown to be the root cause of most chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular, autoimmune and degenerative neurologic conditions.
One compelling finding directly relevant to breast cancer is that breast cancer survivors without diabetes who reported habitually fasting overnight for less than <13 h, had a 36% higher risk of breast recurrence (local, regional, or distant recurrence, or a new primary) . This showed regular fasting overnight for at least 13 hours resulted in a 25% reduction in cancer recurrence compared to those who did not overnight fast for 13 hours. This is very powerful!!. This study did not entail any changes in diet either, just the length of fasting each night.
Another study (in mice, but likely applicable to humans) showed the significant benefits of fasting in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. Findings stated that “Fasting alone robustly inhibits the initiation and reverses the leukemic progression of both B cell and T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL and T-ALL, respectively), but NOT myeloid leukaemia” ALL is the most common form of childhood cancer, though can also occur in adulthood.
Fasting does not have to be difficult or unattainable. With guidance from an experienced practitioner who practices what he preaches. You can easily incorporate this powerful tool to achieve its wonderful benefits for your health
References
Effect of Time-Restricted Eating on Weight Loss in Adults With Type 2 Diabetes. A Randomized Clinical Trial
Vasiliki Pavlou,MS, RD1;Sofia Cienfuegos, PhD1;Shuhao Lin, MS, RD1; et al
JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(10):e2339337. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.39337
. Gabel K., Varady K.A. Current research: Effect of time restricted eating on weight and cardiometabolic health. J. Physiol. 2020 doi: 10.1113/JP280542
Wilkinson M.J., Manoogian E.N, et al. Ten-Hour Time-Restricted Eating Reduces Weight, Blood Pressure, and Atherogenic Lipids in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome. Cell Metab. 2019;31:92–104.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.11.004
Lu Z, Xie J, Wu G, et al. Fasting selectively blocks development of acute lymphoblastic leukemia via leptin-receptor upregulation. Nat Med. 2017 Jan;23(1):79-90. doi: 10.1038/nm.4252. Epub 2016 Dec 12. PMID: 27941793; PMCID: PMC6956990.
Recent Comments