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Scientists have determined that up to 16 weeks of intermittent fasting without calorie counting can help fight obesity and metabolic diseases.
Intermittent fasting in mice helped to kick-start the animals’ metabolism and to burn fat by generating body heat. The research team was led by Hoon-Ki Sung of The Hospital for Sick Children in Ontario, Canada.
Study has shown that our unhealthy eating habits and sedentary lifestyles are playing a major role in the development of lifestyle-related metabolic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity. For this reason, dietary interventions like intermittent fasting are gaining popularity to treat conditions such as obesity.
The study team in this study wanted to better understand the reactions that interventions such as fasting trigger on a molecular level in the body. They exposed groups of mice to sixteen weeks of intermittent fasting. The recurring regimen saw the animals being fed for two days, followed by one day without anything to eat. Their calorie intake was not adjusted otherwise. Four months later the mice in the fasting group weighed less than those in the control group who continued to eat the same volume of food. The lower body weight of the mice in the fasting group was not the only effect. The fasting regime helped lower fat build-up in the white fat by increasing the brown-like fat (involved in burning energy and producing body heat) of mice on the high fat diet. Their glucose and insulin systems also remained more stable. In a further experiment, similar benefits were already seen after only six weeks of intermittent fasting.
Through an analysis into the underlying biology involved, the researchers found that such intermittent fasting tempers an immune reaction in fat cells. There are changes in certain gene pathways involved in the immune system and the body’s reaction to inflammation. A type of white blood cell known to play a role in fighting inflammation is triggered. Known as anti-inflammatory macrophages, these cells stimulate the fat cells to burn stored fats or lipids by generating heat. This happens during periods of intermittent fasting because there is an increase in vascular growth factor (VEGF) that help form blood vessels and activate anti-inflammatory macrophage.
“Intermittent fasting without a reduction in calorie intake can be a preventative and therapeutic approach against obesity and metabolic disorders,” says Kyoung-Han Kim.
“Strikingly, these fasting-stimulated changes in the growth of vascular cells and subsequent immune alterations occur even after a single cycle of 24-hour fasting, and are completely reversed when mice start eating again,” adds Yun Hye Kim.
Agencies/Canadajournal
no shit! People have been saying this for years, but as soon as you mention it to co-workers and friends you are viewed as ‘crazy’ because everyone is so brainwashed into believing that 3 square meals a day are a MUST. Everyone’s DNA is unique, even among siblings, so perpetuating standards regarding diets and other medically-related subjects needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
If you drive a toyota echo, would your maintenance requirements/needs/considerations be the same as say a dodge caravan? of course not. And with humans, the variances become very complex, very quickly.
Personalized medicine and other related technologies could really help guide people more efficiently with ACTUAL possibly predictable results.