> It also reduces the time spent each day processing food and lengthens the period devoted to cleansing and restoring the body’s cells, both of which have positive health effects.
So "cleansing and restoring" the body's cells only happens when one isn't eating?? Gonna need a citation for that one.
If you’re looking for the science, “autophagy,” “AMPK”, “MTOR” are probably good search terms to start with.
Here’s a recent review/introduction on how fasting stimulates autophagy that you can scihub: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156816371... (if you just want PubMed access you can give this one a read: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5783752/ ) and a couple more starting points (follow the citation chain) if you’re looking into molecular mechanisms: https://www.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpendo.00008.20... or https://www.nature.com/articles/ncb2152
But the article specifies exactly what they mean:
> When we eat, our body releases insulin. That disrupts the process of autophagy (from the Greek, meaning “self-devouring”), by which cells deconstruct old, damaged components in order to release energy and build new molecules. Autophagy helps to counteract the aging of cells and builds immunity. Fasts stimulate autophagy and allow the full molecular process to take place, as a team led by Frank Madeo at the University of Graz in Austria found in 2017.
Now maybe insulin doesn't have anything to do with autophagy, but if if the claim that insulin stops autophagy is correct, then "lengthens the period devoted to cleansing and restoring the body’s cells" has a specific well-defined meaning.
It's less about fasting being magic and more about our current lifestyle putting too much/unnecessary strains on our organs.
The real deal with IT is that after a while you became more aware about hunger. Then you can chose to eat when you are hungry vs when "it's time to eat". A lot of it is due to Ghrelin[0] and Insulin afaik. Basically the more regularly you eat the more your body will signal you to eat when the regular time approach -> you feel hungry but in most case your body doesn't _need_ to eat at that time.
There are some "easy" and basic tricks that really helps. One of the best is eating very light dinners, which helps not feeling hungry in the morning (you can easily reduce your daily calorie intake by 30%+ like that). On the other hand eating a big dinner -> feeling super hungry the day after thanks to insulin [1].
[0] https://www.diabetes.co.uk/in-depth/fasting-may-change-bodys...
[1] https://steemit.com/stemng/@pangoli/why-you-wake-up-hungry-a...
Furthermore it's really not clear that something is better just because it was that way during the time we supposedly evolved. For example, we didn't evolve with antiseptics either and yet disinfecting wounds seems like a pretty good idea.
> there have been many generations since agriculture started and agricultural societies regularly outcompeted hunter-gatherers.
Never refuted that, it's more efficient in every aspects. The only problem is that we're way past "eating for survival", we eat for fun, when we're bored, when "it's time to eat" no matter if we truly are hungry or not.
> we know very little about prehistoric lifestyle
I'm sure we can all agree they were not eating 3 times a day at regular interval, every single day of their life while sitting 80% of their awake time. Not even talking about the amount of calories or how processed their food was.
> Furthermore it's really not clear that something is better just because it was that way during the time we supposedly evolved. For example, we didn't evolve with antiseptics either and yet disinfecting wounds seems like a pretty good idea.
I fail to see the link. We evolved a way to keep bacterias out (skin) and antiseptics were designed to help with that in certain cases. Regular mealtime is something we came up very recently, especially for the average joe (ie. industrial revolution). Try putting SP98 in a diesel engine, that's what we're doing with our stomachs. It might somehow run for a bit but in the long term it's no bueno.
The human body is simply not designed for what we throw at it, and is incapable of handling the changes in such a small timeframe. Looking out of the window is enough proof that our lifestyle is not adequate.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3081766/pdf/rsp...
IF may be great but it is definitely also riding a diet fad wave right now.
At least IF doesn't involve the sale of anything... that elevates it above almost all the recent diet fads where you end up buying lots of highly processed supplements.
The reference I have handy shows that Americans average 5 meals/snacks per day now: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29574043 although I’ve seen even higher numbers (closer to 6) mentioned.
Ah, found a source analyzing eating frequency (and timing) changes since 1977: https://idmprogram.com/the-critical-importance-of-meal-timin...
I don't consider myself as someone who fasts and it is typically 13-14 hours from my supper to my breakfast.
Eat dinner around 6-7PM Eat breakfast around 7:30-8AM
My schedule I would assume is shifted forward from say my grandparents schedule. They would have eaten dinner & breakfast earlier due to differences in work hours 50+ years ago.
If that's fasting it seems like a strange/new definition. But maybe a lot of people are indeed still eating something substantial closer to midnight as they watch TV or something?
I actually spread out my lunch into several smaller meals during the day.
But I also exercise a lot, and I'm not buying lunch like so many engineers I work with. My lunch is 1/4-1/2 the size of a sit down restaurant meal.
The old norm was so much more physical activity than today too.
One of those articles is totally right about kids though. When I was a kid I took a lunch to school and that was the only time I ate. My son is going into first grade and all the day cares he went to and his current school have dedicated snack times, 2-3 extra times eating that are not lunch. The day care that had 3 snack times porked the kids up pretty good.
Sadly, due to snacking and the misconception that they should eat as soon as they get up, I suspect that most Americans probably have an eating window that spans 14-16h instead of 8-10h (which has been RCT’d to show a significant difference in hunger and ad libitum food consumption).
When I meditate or fast from time to time I can observe that it makes me feel better and I don’t really feel the importance for someone to explain it.
I think it's very easy to get hung up on refuting or confirming the observer's explanation and ignore the observation. For as much as observations are worth, if someone says they saw a strange animal, I might believe them, if they said they saw Bigfoot, I wouldn't, but that's a very good moment to ask questions.
(Would you only take a cancer drug if the oncologist can explain exactly how it works?)
Explanations need to be tested to verify they are correct. Incorrect explanations delivered authoritatively lead to bad extrapolations, which in turn lead to incorrect procedures. So, if something has been observed to work but an explanation has not been verified, the proper response at the practitioner level is "This tends to work, but we aren't sure why".
Procedures are neither correct nor incorrect but rather effective or ineffective. Whether the explanation is correct or incorrect is irrelevant if the procedure is effective. Of course we would prefer to have both the effective procedure and the correct explanation but if we insist on only applying procedures with correct explanations we are not doing the best we can.
So, I would extend the proper response to, "This tends to work, we don't know why, but you should try it."
I really could not disagree more, given how much conflicting health information I see talked about seemingly daily.
Another way to look at it is that, if we try hard enough, science will offer explanations that take into account all of these differences. But it might be really hard, like multi-billion dollar studies to reach basic conclusions.
However if you make a specific scientific claim about cell "cleansing" then you need to be able to back it up with evidence; without evidence, such claims are just nonsense. There is no "subjective observation" of what cells are doing.
Thank you, I could not agree with this more.
Observation is the basis of science and yet many still need to be passively hand fed how to live and need constant validation from a constantly changing dynamic field where "experts" get fame, power, and attention for their true gospel [1]
Even after I graduated with a science degree and went onto healthcare, my mother would still lovingly remind me, "Son, you may have book smarts, but you need more common sense" :-)
[1] http://nautil.us/issue/74/networks/the-flawed-reasoning-behi...
My father had psoriasis - after a week of fasting, his scabs would completely disappear, even in winter, when he had the worse flare-ups. Even eating healthy, even avoiding all sorts of foods that he knew he was sensitive to (lemons, garlic, spices, etc) didn't have nearly the same effect.
What irks me is the usage of vague but positive terms to indicate what is a neutral, mechanical process. It might have positive impacts in certain circumstances, but if the body were so concerned about "cleansing" and "restoring", it would do it, fasting or not fasting.
Projecting on nature our own intentionality, sense of purpose and good/ bad categories is a pre-scientific attitude.
/rant :)
Sure autophagy is an important process in cellular "cleansing", if you want to use the pop definition here. But more autophagy != good outcomes, generally speaking. For instance, too much autophagy is associated with reduced cellular division and growth.
It sounds like someone just did a s/cleansing toxins/autophagy/ here to make this sound more science-y.
Note, I am NOT saying that there's no value in fasting. There certainly could be. I'm just saying that the article seems to be playing a bit fast and loose with the science.