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Comment by lambdaba | Hacker News Reader

While I did in the safety and chillness of my own apartment, I did a 10 day "dry" fast last year. As opposed to water fasting, with dry fasting you are not hungry AT ALL, but the thirst is something else. It's not unrelenting though, it can fade into the background if the air is humid enough and you refrain from talking too much, the mouth hydrates by itself.

During dry fasting the body gets H20 from lipolysis (this is called "metabolic" water), sort of like a camel (though camels have obviously a lot of specialization for this).

Anyway, thought it was a propos, so AMA if curious.

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This sounds incredibly dangerous

It is incredibly dangerous, hypernatremia sadly occurs way too often in elderly patients in care homes where the patients are weak or mentally incapacitated and can't/don't ask for a drink of water and/or are ignored by their carers for long enough.

elderly patients in care homes is a far cry from anyone attempting to do this on their own

They are literally our only (unwilling) test subjects... Not a representative cohort by any means

It does indeed sound incredibly dangerous, it isn't though. Russians (and some other European nations chiefly Germany) are into fasting, though I only know about Russians organizing dry fasting retreats, like Dr. Filinov https://www.wildestvitality.com/portfolio/items/winter-2023-...

I know it's both a cliché and something that westerners often have forgotten how to do, but you can actually listen to your body and know minute by minute if you're in danger or not. For dry fasting, you are told that if you start getting persistent high heart rate you should stop.

Now what you should find intriguing is why would anyone put themselves through this? Well, it has immense and unique health benefits, that's why. It's been studied, although less than water fasting for obvious reasons. Even water fasters think we're crazy, so I understand.

> Dr Sergey Filonov is a world leader in clinical dry fasting expertise and the successful treatment of diseases, acute illnesses, chronic disorders and undiagnosable conditions.

> you can actually listen to your body and know minute by minute if you're in danger or not

Friend, this is all hocus pocus bogus from a crackpot doctor. Other sources even say dry fasting is rarely done today (because it's hocus pocus), even if it was once popular in the Soviet Union.

You will also notice how this crackpot doctor charges $2,200 for a supervised 2 day dry fast - not 10!

Please don't go 10 days without liquid intake - especially when you are without medial supervision for crying out loud. You cannot monitor yourself properly under these extreme conditions. Even if you survive 10 days without any liquid intake, you may (and probably will) cause irreversible damage to your body and organs.

Well, I did it, and I felt AMAZING for months after.

I don't care about the doctor at all, I only wanted to link to the retreat to people are doing it and paying for it.

I'm not advocating anybody do it either, and since it's so difficult, even though it's less than it appears, I don't see anyone jumping in blindly into this.

Humans are almost uniquely adapted to starvation. Dry fasting is simply a boosted form of water fasting, which is almost mainstream. There's no particular danger to a person in reasonable health. I am so I could do it by myself.

You may not be aware of the Placebo Effect[1]. What you experienced was not real in the sense that anything changed but your belief you felt better.

While the placebo effect can be a powerful mental illusion, it will not prevent damage to your organs (or death) during this 10 day dry fast. Please don't ever do this.

[1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/the-power-...

Of course placebo is involved in everything, as you know, whether you are aware of it or not, but the results of fasting are well studied and only a web search away.

From that site:

> Russian physicians have successfully treated many illnesses and diseases outside

> the standardized support of allopathic medicines, as well as more common

> ailments including, but not limited to, mental disorders, bronchial asthma,

> rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, obesity and diabetes.

I guess the Gulag does cure everything...

(though to be fair, the part of the diseases mentioned that are due to metabolic disease - read: obesity - can be treated early in their course by just losing weight - diabetes and hypertension due to obesity will go away once you drop the weight. Just, you know, drink water if you're fasting. Or join the Darwin Awards, whatever).

Right, I sense a lack of open-mindedness here, or curiosity, fasting is widely recognized as having unique effects on stem cells including the immune system.

I'm sorry if you "sense a lack of open-mindedness" in my skepticism regarding Russian medicine. I'm actually very curious - I've water fasted myself. But I try to be rational, and tend to think anecdotal evidence shouldn't move my priors too much.

I don't know why you're making it about Russian medicine, as I said I've only given this example to show there is interest in structured arrangements for dry fasting, I guess it backfired because those Russians are backwards pre-scientific primitives or something.

Fasting is an ancient practice, perhaps the most ancient medical practice.

There's a difference between not eating food for a day, and not drinking any liquids for 10 days... one of these can and will kill you. Do you know which? It seems you do not.

You don't know what you're talking about though, I'm in the community and I assure you there are MANY of use that do it, some more often then others. I know a guy how once did 3 back-to-back 15 day dry fasts with 3 day breaks in between.

Can I ask what led you to doing this?

(And regardless - you usually aren't hungry during an extended water fast either - you do get physiological "pings" during your normal meal times. However, I would assume that if you're depriving yourself of water the body naturally overrides everything with signals for thirst)

I have MS, where autoimmune processes deteriorate the conductive coating on the nerves (myelin), and fasting is known for greatly boosting myelin repair. In fact, the most effective currently known remyelination treatment is a fasting mimetic (metformin) alongside an antihistamine (clemastine). It also regenerates the immune system, with obvious benefits for optimal functioning.

I'm sorry to hear about your MS - I can understand seeking whatever treatment might help, Did you do a pre/post MRI to compare the effect? (or whatever, CSF markers, OCT, what have you) How did you decide on the type and length of the fast? Have you tried water fasts beforehand? How long did you find a positive effect? Is the fast something that you plan on doing on continual schedule?

My MRIs are great because of all the "alternative" practices I did over the years, and it's not a new diagnosis either, usually at this stage people have a sizable amount of lesions. My last brain MRI came almost entirely clear, remarked upon by the doctor, with no signs of brain atrophy, which is almost unheard of at this point especially for someone not on a conventional immunosuppressant

I did do water fasts, dry fasts are simply more effective for the same time spend.

I do plan, not there yet because right now I'm focusing on building up exercise capacity and i'm also on high dose vitamin D for which it's recommended do drink lots of fluids, so I cut it out for a while and wait for my D levels to go down and when the weather permits I'll go at it again, probably on a whim which I find easier than setting a date beforehand.

How long ago was the MS diagnosed? What other alternative practices have you done? Any of them for an appreciable time with consistent good results (or inversely bad results when stopping)?

May your good health continue!

Thank you,

15 years ago

- "paleo" diet with the usual elimination trifecta of gluten, sugar & dairy, quit alcohol & nicotine <= this is where I was convinced it was the way when in the space of a week or so a lot of my more evident symptoms faded away

- later keto

- much later (6 years ago) carnivore diet

- more recently megadose vitamin D (~2y with breaks)

- even more recently psilocybin (full doses)

- a lot of supplementation over the years which took a long time to figure out because the space is so vast and so hard to read, at least it was back in the early '10s. Nowadays B vitamin megadoses, fish oil, some newer research findings like n-acetylglucosamine, still have a lot to explore in the peptide area for neurogenesis and myelin repair, also mineral balancing, iron management (I'm male so phlebotomy), a few popular and totally mainstream supplements researched for MS like alpha-lipoic acid

That's about it in the most condensed manner. The entire history would be about 30x the size as my supplement drawer proves, though I already threw out a lot

Things I failed at and hurt me: stress management, sleep. Doing much better nowadays but these should probably be #1.

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