Periodic fasting is good for the health and can help you lose
weight, even if you gorge afterwards. It's known that mice
live longer on a severely restricted calorie diet and it protects
them from diseases and stress as well. But do we have to live
a life of starvation? Scientists now think we can get the
same benefits from alternately fasting and feasting.
Mice living on a semi-starvation diet have lower weights, less
risk of diabetes and Alzheimer's, and less stress. When
scientists fed mice every other day, but let them gorge on
the days they ate, the mice had the same health benefits as
mice living on a 40% reduced calorie diet all the time. At first
researchers thought this was because the mice were eating
less overall, but they found this wasn't true. They now want
to find out if alternate feasting and fasting works for humans
as well.
Mark P. Mattson, of the National Institute on Aging, wants to
compare the health of a group of people who eat normal
three meals a day with a similar group, eating the same diet
and same amount of food, but eating it all within four hours
and then fasting for 20 hours before eating
again. "Overeating is a big problem now in this country, it's
particularly troublesome that a lot of children are overweight.
It's still unclear the best way to somehow get people to eat
less," he says. "?One possibility is skipping a meal a day. Our
study suggests that skipping meals is not bad for you.
"We think what happens is going without food imposes a mild
stress on cells and cells respond by increasing their ability to
cope with more severe stress," Mattson says. Stress may
make the body more susceptible to the diseases of aging, so
being able to cope with it better keeps you young.
The
real truth is almost never what it seems.
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