Rejuvenation: five days of "light" fasting

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MunichKickstart for health: If you save calories for only five days a month and also eat the right thing, you can lower your risk of diabetes, heart attack and cancer. And the particularly harmful belly fat also melts away.

"Such a cure works like a new start for the body," says study director Valter Longo. “He is rejuvenated and the risk of serious illnesses is reduced.” In fact, fasting cures have long been considered an effective method of getting your body into shape. However, in this phase - especially with a zero diet - he receives too little protein, vitamins and minerals. Above all, however, many find it difficult to take a radical break from eating.

Fasting effect despite food intake

Now Longo and colleagues have shown that you can achieve a fasting effect and still eat: They have developed the so-called “Fasting Mimicking Diet” - in German: the “fasting imitating diet”.

For the study, 19 subjects consumed around 1,100 kilocalories on the first day of the five-day cure - around half of the average daily requirement - consisting of ten percent protein, 56 percent fat and 34 percent carbohydrates. They ate the latter mainly in the form of vegetables. Unlike sugar or white flour products, vegetables, in addition to carbohydrates, provide large amounts of vitamins, minerals and secondary plant substances that support the body's regeneration processes. Among other things, there were plenty of vegetable soups, special kale crackers and chamomile tea on the menu.

Lots of vegetables, few calories

On diet days two to five, the participants further reduced their calorie intake to 725 kilocalories - about a third of the average energy requirement. The energy was supplied nine percent from proteins, 44 percent from fat and 47 percent from carbohydrates.

It was worth it: Participants who had been on a five-day “light” fasting regimen for three months improved certain factors associated with diabetes and cardiovascular disease. These include blood sugar, belly fat and the C-reactive protein, which indicates inflammatory processes in the body. In addition, the level of the growth hormone IGF-1 decreased. This hormone is important for growth, especially in youth. But it also accelerates aging processes and promotes tumor formation.

In contrast to classic fasting cures, the five-day diet did not affect either muscle mass or bones.

Life extending effect

Previous studies by the team with mice have shown that such a nutritional concept could even have a life-prolonging effect. Animals that had been on a low-calorie diet program twice a month for four days during their lifetime had significantly more stem cells. Compared to mice with a normal diet, their bones, muscles, brain and immune cells regenerated correspondingly faster. This actually had an effect on the lifespan of the animals - they were healthier overall and lived longer than their conspecifics from a control group. Their mental fitness also benefited: the fasting mice performed better in memory and learning tests.

Practical concept

The results of the study are so promising that the scientists want to test them on a significantly larger group of volunteers as soon as possible.

The great advantage of the “five-day fasting cure” is that it is uncomplicated to carry out, does not burden the body and, above all, that the cure is easy to endure: only five of the participants jumped out. And one thing is certain: any diet can only work if you stick to it. (cf)

Source: Sebastian Brandhorst et al .: A Periodic Diet that Mimics Fasting Promotes Multi-System Regeneration, Enhanced Cognitive Performance, and Healthspan; Cell metabolism, 06/18/2015; DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2015.05.012

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