Malnutrition can in turn harm the immune system. Where's the sweet spot? Who knows, and the fear of malpractice suits slows down progress.
The body works in one of two mode. 1: use current energy, as long as you provide energy (eating) it'll use it and make you hungry if you're not giving it enough. 2: use stored energy. If you stop eating for long enough (some say 12 hours, other say 24 hours, I suspect it depends on what you have make your body used to, eg some long distance runners fast to make their body switch to fat burning mode earlier). The body has zero energy available in stomach/muscles, it'll then start burning stored fat ; unless you're very skinny, you can go on stored fat for a long time.
If you eat normal meals (no calorie restriction, you shouldn't be hungry at the end of the meal) between fasts, it shouldn't lead to health problems.
Recent studies show that the refeeding at the end of a 5+ day fast is benefic for your health, the closest thing to stem cells. Google "Valter Longo" for more information about it.
For general information about fasting, check Jason Fung material (blogs, youtube). He's a medical doctor who runs a clinic to cure patients of diabetes type 2 through fasting, and has put out a lot of material out there with lots of explanations.
http://www.johnshopkinshealthreview.com/issues/spring-summer...
As someone that USE TO (Why is it you have more self-discipline in your 20s then your older years???) Fast about once a week for 24 hours (supper to supper). There are many positive benefits as a person when you go past 3 days also. There are plenty of studies out there about fasting and its benefits and risk. People who have never done more then 3 days nor have read scientific research seem to see this as a negative. The human body can go for more then 40 days without food so a few days actually has very little negative "malnutrition" issues.
The stomach takes about 3 days to shrink after that has finished you actually don't really feel hungry and surprisingly you would be shocked at the spike in energy and focus you get for the days 4-10. Longest I have ever done was 10 days but man food explodes with flavor. One of my favorite things is after coming back to food everything taste better and is more enjoyable.
No you wouldn't collapse, the body stores fat exactly for this reason. When you fast, eventually your body switches to fat burning mode.
I stopped drinking soda many years ago (apart from the odd coke at a party or something). Realised it was addictive. It just feels normal to always be drinking water now. I don't miss it.
Coffee, I turn my machine on in the morning and it's 50/50 if I remember to drink one during the day. I drink a fair amount of tea (PG Tips with milk, I'm English) though.
If you are a big coffee drinker then start during a weekend where you can get through coming off coffee. Headaches and a mind like molassis are a hard way to go through th work day.
Otherwise it's coffee in the morning, I'm a developer after all, code isn't going to magic itself out of thin air, it needs coffee! :-)
I rarely get hungry now, and whilst I have in the past experienced the "food explodes with flavor" sensation you mention, I don't any more. If anything, the re-feeding is something of an anti-climax.
And I agree with the other poster about the 'tastebud high' -- I'd hate to lose that, as it's perhaps half the kick of fasting!
Are you sure you haven't developed some sort of 'habit'? With all due respect of course, just curious...
And your concern is noted graciously, but no, I'm pretty sure it's not a habit. It may of course be a waste of time. Time will tell.
After growing up with massive sugar intake, and then ending up in my early 20s in a state where i would get bloodsugar shakes if i didn't eat balanced meals, i now live in a low-carb environment (just shy of keto) and am super super happy with it. High fats keep me so stable, i never have bloodsugar issues anymore.
I can easily skip a meal because i'm not dropping off a bloodsugar cliff where all i had to run off of were breads and sweets for breakfast, etc.
With that said, i'm still afraid of pushing my bloodsugar too far. If you have bloodsugar issues, are you just doomed from fasting?
Note that my issues were minor (imo), but again, undiagnosed. Things are better these days too, fwiw.
About a year ago there was a similar article on here as this one. So I really wanted to fast, but had similar concerns as you have now. So I went out and got a cheap blood glucose measuring device as diabetics use. I measured my blood glucose over the course of a day and then tried intermittent fasting the following days. Everything was great. I felt weak and generally shitty in the late morning on the first day I did this, but that went away on its own by noon even before I ate at 1pm. Meanwhile my blood glucose was fine.
Maybe it will be different in your case, but why not find out? If you measure your blood glucose frequently and have good at hand in case it does get too low, what could go wrong.
Of course I'm not a doctor and you better talk to one than just trusting don't random guy on the internet.
One question: does that mean you take the supper before fasting, or the one after fasting, or none, or both?
you bet they want to make gosh darn sure that if something is going to help cancer they want to be able to charge thousands of dollars/dose for it
Special $500 fasting pills which contain only water.
https://www.google.com/#q=iodine+apoptosis
The first two results are NIH papers on the topic.
Also, when you say iodine and apoptosis my first thought is cancer treatment— is that what you're implying?
Iodine has also been suggested as a cancer cure for many different types - some strains of breast cancer in particular. This is because there are a couple pathways leading to apoptosis that require iodine to function - turns out your mitochondria need iodine too.
The funniest thing I ran across in all this was an article about the link between kelp and reduced breast cancer risk. At the end they said this should be investigated further because the author knew kelp had high iodine content and thought that would be bad for people. In other words, we need to isolate the anti-cancer agent and commercialize it so you don't kill yourself with too much iodine. Funny because the iodine is likely the anti-cancer agent, and is not bad for you in the slightest.
My argument is simply this: doctors need more leverage to use cutting edge research in their practice. I am not in the medical field, and I don't know exactly how to accomplish this, but must surely lose a lot of organic ground-level experimentation at individual doctor-patient mutual consent, which would generate a wealth of epidemiological data with which to move medicine forward. It deprives patients of certain medical alternatives, and doctors of part of their scientific capacity as experimentalists.
The entire field of vaccinations began from an observation of smallpox immunity in the Turkish country side where folk wisdom was to rub scabs into superficial wounds of healthy children. When western doctors observed a stark decrease in the infection rate, this began experimentation that became the foundation of the modern practice. I don't think that this could be done today.
The extreme counterexample is the Tuskegee experiment, but the key element missing there was patient awareness of their own participation as an experimental control.
If patients consent to trials and enough evidence accumulates it will become the standard of care. Of course it's going to be tough to patent not eating so don't hold your breath.