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Comment by krtkush | Hacker News Reader

I have observed a surge in articles related to fasting (all of them are positive about it). Has there been new breakthrough in the field?

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It won't last - how do you make money off a fasting diet? There's nothing to sell, unlike WeightWatchers, Shakes, Juice diets etc.

Unless someone sells fasting chewing gum or something.

You sell calorie free "cleansing" drinks.

Ah yes of course. There is some interesting research into the benefits of Dihydrogen Monoxide with Hydroxyl Acid extracts, zero calories and can help extend a fast for days. Patent pending.

Be careful, though. Prolonged expose of Dihydrogen Monoxide to the lungs has been shown to cause death. It also rusts metals and dissolves many other materials.

I think may schools have been shown to have Dihydrogen Monoxide contamination in their cafeterias and restrooms.

Plus it was found to be the main component of cancer cells, so I'd be really cautious here.

For ketosis, you are allowed to eat carbohydrate less food. So, cheese is fine.

But then your LDL will rise up, thereby negating any cardiac benefits...

Diatary and Blood collesterol are not casually linked as many erroniously assume. Easy mistake.

I don't want to get into a heated nutrition debate because it's such a mess divisive landscape, but wanted to share the other side, which looks compelling: https://nutritionfacts.org/2016/03/22/the-effects-of-dietary... And another interesting piece of science pointing at causation rather than correlation regarding LDL and CAD: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-do-we-know-that-cholest...

“While the low carb, ketogenic diet did not lower total LDL cholesterol, it did result in a shift from small, dense LDL to large, buoyant LDL, which could lower cardiovascular disease risk.”

Low carbs diet also increase HDL.

Here is an article that goes into a little detail : https://www.ruled.me/the-ketogenic-diet-and-cholesterol/

I'll offer to take your money so you can't use it to buy food. For a fee, of course ;)

There is a market writing books, articles, and spamming hackernews with it to promote said books and articles. I am yet to see a good, accepted study linked though.

If its anything like technology, dieting probably suffers from baseless trends which become self-sustaining at a certain point.

Well fasting has been a trend since I don't even know, well before ancient greece at least. Western culture != entire world.

fasting has been common in the western world since forever too.

But that has nothing to do with the fact that it's a nutritional fad these days, much like paleo was the hip-est thing a few years back, and the mediterranean diet was en vogue before that etc.

Just the same, the current diet / dieting of most Western peoples is not sustainable. There's always noise and opportunists. That doesn't the rest of us should try.

Ultimately, for me, these articles boil down to me being willing to change my relationship with food. The more I eat for health, and less for pleasure, the better off I'll be.

It might just be the post-Soylent diet fad in tech:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/04/silicon...

Has the surge been all year, or only the past few days? The large Jewish fast, Yom Kipporim, starts tomorrow evening and people love to find scientific explanations for their strange habits.

If my comment sounds condescending, then be there no mistake: I'm Jewish and I'll be fasting.

it has been growing for the past decade. me and several people I know regularly fast for health benefits and not religion.

This was when it hit the mainstream for me https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lxyzc a BBC programme in 2012

It must be an up-and-coming Internet trend/meme (a la what color is the dress?) in the health community. One of my coworkers just transitioned from a ketogenic diet to intermittent fasting.

I'm not so sure. IF was in "fad" mode several years ago. The IF sub-reddit is already 6 years old. Now it just appears to be something that people are rediscovering because of posts (mainly on social media) about this type of research. There's nothing "new" in IF in terms of the approach to diet.

Here's an HN submission from 2012:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4341091

No, it’s just fasting bank holiday in Switzerland.

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