Medical Evidence for Fasting
As I mentioned in my review of The Fast Diet, the scientific evidence for fasting seems to grow by the day. Fasting has been around forever and was primarily thought of as a religious or spiritual practice. Now, researchers are starting to find that that we can scientifically quantify the health benefits of this technique.
Is fasting beneficial for health?
Mayo Clinic: “Maybe”
WebMD: “data . . . is not there yet.”
Harvard School of Public Health: dietary restriction is being actively studied in the laboratory of James R. Mitchell. He has already published papers indicating that fasting may boost recovery from surgical procedures and increase resistance to disease.
The Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University is actively studying various dietary interventions and their role in health, including fasting. You can sign up for their free newsletter here.
I received a press release recently for a book called The Alzheimer’s Diet, by Harvard-trained neurologist Richard Isaacson M.D. and Christopher Ochner Ph.D., a leading researcher on nutrition and the brain at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the New York Obesity Nutrition Research Center, that promises to answer “Why fasting at night for 12 hours may have neuroprotective effects and boost memory function.”
A Popular Diet Fad?
I was surprised to see this headline on a recent Vogue magazine cover, “Hunger Games: Does Intermittent Fasting Really Work?” The article quotes Marc Hellerstein, M.D./Ph.D. of the University of California, Berkeley as saying, “The two things [humans] do best are pass on our genes and starve.”
Fasting even for people with blood sugar regulation problems
Medical science tells us that “Skipping meals . . . causes large fluctuations in blood sugar levels.” While there are certain people who should never fast (Type I diabetics being of primary concern), you would expect that fasting would not be recommended for anyone with any sort of blood sugar regulation problem.
Interestingly, this doesn’t turn out to be the case! When you research blood sugar regulation, the two groups that keep coming up over and over are women with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and Type II diabetics. Curiously, research has shown that fasting can be beneficial even for these seemingly high-risk groups. (Of course, anyone in these groups should check with their doctor first!)
Prof. Daniela Jakubowicz of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Diabetes Unit at Wolfson Medical Center found that for women with PCOS, eating one big meal at breakfast first thing (983 calories), then smaller meals for lunch (645) and almost nothing for dinner (190 calories) helps regulate insulin levels and improve fertility. (Note that this sounds fairly similar to fasting for about 16 hours each day).
Recent research for Type II diabetics recommends almost the opposite approach : “Skip breakfast and tuck into a large Mediterranean-style lunch instead.” Fredrik Nyström, Professor of Internal Medicine at Linköping University is quoted as saying: “[O]ne meal is preferable to several lighter ones for people with diabetes.” (Again, if you are only eating heavily once a day, you are fasting nearly the whole rest of the time.)
Support for fasting grows in the naturopathic community as well
It’s not just hard core medical researchers who are looking into the benefits of fasting. Naturopathic and holistic health practitioners are seeing benefits as well. Is breakfast really “the most important meal of the day?” Some fasting researchers are starting to question this age-old maxim. Some say we might do better skipping breakfast altogether!
A nutritionist for Australian naturopath Dr. Sandra Cabot recently wrote an article advising “Don’t Eat Breakfast.”
I understand that some people just don’t want to fast and I am not here to convince everyone to do it. However, it is important for people to understand that fasting is a dieting technique that is available and that it may have far-reaching health benefits as well. You may be hearing more and more about fasting as time goes by.
I will share with you in a later post my own experience with fasting so far but first, I want to share just a little more theory I have learned about blood sugar . . . in the next post.