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Comment by Jd | Hacker News Reader

Fascinating. What were the "few trustworthy references" you found? I've never heard anything like your experience before, and the anecdotal evidence I've heard regarding fasting is largely gathered from spiritual traditions (i.e. Yoga, Christian, etc.).

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1. My grandmother was a doctor who had treated a lot of holocaust survivors, and collected their stories, which she later told my entire family. Several were about "miraculous improvement" in health conditions; some of it was, of course, survivorship bias (no pun intended ...) - those who were killed first where the less healthy and less able. But my grandmother had medical reasons to believe that a big part of it was nutrition (or rather, lack of it for long stretches at a time) -- especially because after the war, with the availability of a variety of foods, many illnesses came back. On that week, I verified with the family that I remembered her stories and conclusions correctly.

2. I found a book by Bernarr McFadden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernarr_Macfadden (can't remember the name right now) that correctly described my experience (it's hard to find descriptions at all; and everyone around has the anthonyb opinion that I'm about to die because I haven't eaten in x days). That book had very old references (from the '30s) about fasting practices in some indian castes - which I was then able to altavista (that was before Google hit the scene) and confirm

3. I consulted my doctor, and a friend who had finished his medical studies and was doing his internship at the time. Both had the immediate anthonyb reaction, but a few minutes later conceded that any of the things they feared would trigger horrible pains, blackouts, etc - and that couldn't be right as I was feeling good.

YMMV. 1) and 3) may not be available to you. 2) was available to me from the university library, but I'm not sure where I can find it today. But it was available to me at the time.

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