In strict terms, consuming anything more than water is not a fast, it’s a diet. Eating only fruit, or consuming only juice for example should be called a restricted diet.
Contents
- An Historical Method of Healing
- A Current Method of Healing
- Fasting and Hypertension
- Fasting and Cancer
- Fasting and Brain Health
- Ketones and Ketosis
- Fasting Biochemistry
- Fasting and the Immune System
- Summary
- Resources
An Historical Method of Healing
The health benefits of fasting were well known in the ancient world.
When you fast “your light shall break forth like the morning, and your health shall spring forth speedily.”
– Isaiah the prophet (8th c. B.C.)
“I fast for greater physical and mental efficiency.”
– Plato (5th c. B.C.)
“The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. …to eat when you are sick, is to feed your sickness.”
– Hippocrates (4th c. B.C., father of Western medicine)
“Fasting is the first principle of medicine…”
– Rumi (13th c. Persian poet)
At one point Greek Catholics observed more than 180 days of fasting during the year.
Oxford Encyclopedia of Food
A Current Method of Healing
“Calorie restriction is probably the most scientifically established diet regimen for improving health.”
John Trepanowski, PhD,
Stanford Prevention Research Center
A meta-analysis of multiple scientific studies regarding fasting was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2007… and determined that fasting is an effective way to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. It also showed significant potential in treating [type 2] diabetes.
According to Dr Alan Goldhamer, fasting is not the actual cure but more an effective means by which “the body can try to heal itself.”
He is the founder of TrueNorth Health Center in Santa Rosa, California. The facility has been operating for over 30 years and had over 10,000 patients go through the fasting protocol.
Fasting and Hypertension
Their most dramatic and well documented success has come in the treatment of hyper-tension. The results were published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, or JMPT, “Medically Supervised Water-only Fasting in the Treatment of Hyper-tension.”
The study group included 174 consecutive patients with hypertension—174 people achieving blood pressure low enough to eliminate medication and the largest effect sizes that have ever been shown in treating high blood pressure in humans, with an average drop of 60 points in stage III hypertension, independent of the medication effects.
Water Fasting—The Clinical Effectiveness of Rebooting Your Body Alan Goldhamer, dc: Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4684131/
Fasting and Cancer
Essentially fasting works against cancer on two fronts:
- fasting eliminates glucose from the body (blood and liver). Because cancer uses glucose as fuel, without it the cancer cells starve.
- When the body does not have enough glucose for energy, it burns stored fats instead; this results in a build-up of acids called ketones within the body. “Ketones decrease tumor cell viability.”
According to the International Journal of Cancer, “cancer cells express an abnormal metabolism characterized by increased glucose consumption… Previous studies indicate that unlike healthy tissues, cancer cells are unable to effectively use ketone bodies for energy. Furthermore, ketones inhibit the proliferation and viability of cultured tumor cells.”
The unique conditions created by fasting simultaneously starve and attack cancer cells.
Dr Darren Schmidt – Fasting Kills Cancer [the simplest explanation]
Fasting and Brain Health
Scientists at the National Institute on Aging... published several papers that discuss how fasting twice a week could significantly lower the risk of developing both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. According to the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience, these same researchers have also had success treating epilepsy.
Fasting and Brain Health
“Fasting is a challenge to the brain. The brain responds to that challenge by creating stress response pathways that help it cope with stress and resist disease.”
Professor of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and Chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging
Ketones and Ketosis
What are ketones?
A class of acidic organic compounds that includes acetone and aceto-acetic acid. Ketones… are formed in states of carbohydrate deficiency…
Collins dictionary of Medicine
Ketones are ultimately oxidized in the mitochondria for energy. In the brain, ketone bodies are converted into long-chain fatty acids.
What is ketosis?
Ketosis is a normal metabolic process. When the body does not have enough glucose for energy, it burns stored fats instead; this results in a build-up of acids called ketones within the body.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/180858.php
Biochemistry of Fasting Ketosis
When not digesting and metabolizing food for caloric content (fasting), the body finds progressive sources of energy as follows:
Day 1 – glycogen stored in the liver (the first 10 – 12 hours)
Day 2 – free fatty acids (a process called ketosis)
Day 3 – the body converts glycerol into glucose from body fat. It also begins breaking down amino acids in muscle tissue, which are used by the liver to make more glucose.
Day 4 – 7 – ketone production sustains energy needs while conserving protein, protecting muscle tissue and vital organs from damage.
Day 8 and beyond – fuel is derived from alternate sources of protein including nonessential cellular masses like degenerative tissues, bacteria, viruses…
Fasting and the Immune System
A study in the June 5 issue of the Cell Stem Cell shows that cycles of prolonged fasting not only protect against immune system damage — a major side effect of chemotherapy — but also induce immune system regeneration, shifting stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal.
An article in USC News titled “Fasting Triggers Stem Cell Regeneration of Damaged, Old Immune System,” reveals “prolonged fasting induces a kind of biological recycling program within the body, eliminating non essential cellular matter, especially damaged ones.”
“For example immune supporting white blood cell counts drop, but when food is reintroduced, new and healthy white blood cells are regenerated.”
Journal Cell Stem Cell, June 2014
(a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Cell Press)
Summary
It is interesting to note that all animals fast when they are sick, humans included. We intuitively lose our appetite.
Resources
Water Fasting and Health
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/10/22/fascinating-evidence-shows-why-water-fasting-could-be-one-of-the-healthiest-things-you-can-do/
Fasting verses Calorie Restriction
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=APZCfmgzoS0
Ketones
http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/ketones-14241
Ketones – definition
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketone_bodies
Fasting and Stem Cell Regeneration
https://news.usc.edu/63669/fasting-triggers-stem-cell-regeneration-of-damaged-old-immune-system/
True North Health Center- a medically supervised fasting clinic
https://www.healthpromoting.com/