The next five benefits of fasting are health-related. It’s incredible the power of allowing the human body time to heal itself.
The health benefits can start to get scientific, but I’ll leave that for the scientists and doctors, by providing links for further information. I’ll provide a quick and brief summary.
Due to the brevity, we can’t go deep into exceptions, alternatives etc. but if something sparks interest certainly check the references, and do some further research.
6. The first of the five health benefits of fasting is autophagy
Autophagy is a natural process of cleaning up our insides, by recycling junk in our bodies. A video explanation from a doctor is HERE.
Autophagy, however, can take 12 hours of fasting to start, and we often don’t go that long without food. Even factoring in 8 hours of sleep, if we have breakfast soon after waking up, or eat a snack before dinner, we would prevent this process from ever occurring.
If cleansing never occurs our insides would be a junkyard. This cleansing process certainly piqued my interest, and it’s also helpful in preventing horrible brain diseases.
7. The second of the five health benefits of fasting is brain disease prevention
Neurodegenerative is the correct term, but I’ll just say brain for simplicity. Brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s and Dementia certainly scare me. If there is anything I can do to reduce my chances of getting these I’m on board, and it looks like Autophagy can help.
There is a scientific article HERE, which goes into a lot of detail. The conclusion being it does look promising that Autophagy may be a powerful tool in the prevention and treatment of these diseases.
The autophagy process not removing junk from the brain causes deterioration. It’s also not only the brain that can be helped, other organs can too.
8. The third benefit is cancer prevention.
Combine autophagy with the various health benefits of being a good weight through fasting, and we can reduce the chances of cancers. Another scientific analysis can be found HERE.
In summary, the results look like fasting can help in the prevention of cancer. Fasting can give non-cancerous cells a boost as they go into a protected mode, and at the same time stunting cancer cells.
It also appears that fasting combined with other therapies produces better results than either on their own. Improved blood pressure is the next benefit.
9. The forth is improved blood pressure.
Fasting can reduce blood pressure. There is another study HERE where they performed a strictly controlled test.
There was a control group that had three meals over 12 hours, and a fasting group that had three meals over 6 hours. Both groups had the same meals and calories, the only difference was the time window they ate. The study lasted 5 weeks.
In the group with a 6-hour eating window, their average blood pressure reduced by approximately 10%.
That is a huge reduction in such a short period, with no changes except having a shorter feeding window. Not eating healthier, exercising more, or eating less, just eating within a shorter time window.
That leaves the final benefit of reducing the chances of getting diabetes.
10. The final health benefit is diabetes prevention.
Most of us have heard about insulin and diabetes but may not know what they are. This is a simplified non-technical definition. To keep it simple there are a lot of details and specifics missing.
Glucose
- A simple definition is sugar in the blood.
Insulin
- Is a hormone that tells cells to absorb glucose from the bloodstream.
Insulin resistance
- Occurs when cells don’t listen to insulin because the cells are constantly full.
Diabetes type 1
- The body can’t produce enough insulin under normal conditions.
- Cells don’t absorb glucose from the bloodstream, due to a lack of insulin.
- Insulin shots are required to get normal insulin levels.
- Not diet-related.
Diabetes type 2
- The body can’t produce enough insulin for the high amounts of glucose in the blood.
- Cells are told to absorb glucose from blood but don’t listen due to insulin resistance.
- Insulin shots are required to get insulin levels high enough to force the cells to take in glucose.
- Typically diet-related.
So how does fasting come into this?
Let’s briefly summarise what happens when an overweight individual enters a fasted state.
- Glucose is no longer available from food.
- Stored glucose gets used.
- Our bodies start producing glucose.
- Insulin resistance reduces as cells need to absorb glucose.
- Less insulin is required due to the reduction in insulin resistance from cells.
- With diabetes type 2, insulin shots can often be reduced and eventually eliminated.
In the same study from before, that showed a blood pressure drop HERE also shows a reduction in both insulin and insulin sensitivity. And two weeks after the fasting study had finished participants maintained an over 25% reduction in insulin levels.
With so many people suffering from diabetes it’s something I certainly want to avoid. Diabetes prevention is another reason fasting is part of my life.
Combining all these benefits, we get to the primary reason I fast, which is for longevity.
Longevity
I want to live to 100. Average life expectancy isn’t there yet, so I need to be healthier than average. What has shown to improve longevity… you guessed it fasting.
A mice study HERE that found that mice eating one meal a day, lived on average 11% longer than those that had constant access to food. Even though they consumed the same type, and amount of food.
The average life expectancy went up even further with a calorie-restricted diet to 28%.
While fasting doesn’t necessarily mean a reduction in calories, human studies do typically see a reduction of calories consumed when the feeding window is less. Further adding to the possibility of living longer.
These are of course mice studies and mice are very different than humans. But with all the benefits discussed, it makes sense that fasting would help the chances of living a longer and healthier life.
I believe fasting is another pillar of a healthy lifestyle. Diet and exercise are important and when combined into a trio of diet, exercise and fasting become a force to be reckoned with.
