Fasting for health?

[ncernaa]

Have any of you tried doing a prolonged water fast? I have read that fasting can help the body to focus its resources on healing and repair. Perhaps it can repair the heart too.

[rosyG]

I'd be very careful about fasting- if your electrolytes get out of sync you are likely to get AF and other problems. Best to just have vegetables and fruit for a while if you want to get healthy!!

[CDreamer]

I have - a long time ago and before AF and other conditions and medications. Yes it helped but depends what you mean by ‘helped’ and ‘prolonged’? I really don’t think it will heal your heart - but can help give your gut a holiday and heal and gut and Heart health are often closely connected.

If you are young, fit and not taking medications 24-48 hour diet may help - but I would also recommend only doing it if you really know what you are talking about or under professional supervision.

I quite often do 24 hours without solid food but take home made smoothies - at 6 hour intervals when I do - not just water. I need some nourishment to absorb medications and would warn anyone taking AntiCoagulants not to fast simply because of the absorption difficulty.

[CDreamer]

Some good points!

[RajaRua]

Really helpful link there to AFibbers. Thank you for sharing goldie11. Have fasted a lot in my 40's but always got horrendous palpitations and extreme headaches for a while at the beginning. Since I've been having AFib I really wouldn't chance fasting again. It wasn't even water fasting but fresh juice fasting. I did 10 days at a time. Felt wonderful after it. I'd love to be able to fast but even fasting for a day can cause severe palpitations. I might try it if I had close supervision from a functional medical team. Not easy to find one of those in Ireland though! I'm off to get some Coconut water now as advised in the link above! Thank you so much again for sharing it. I want to read it again later. Blessings! B

[rosyG in reply to RajaRua]

get the Vito Coco brand- it's higher in Potassium!! I had no AF for 3 years after upping Potassium in diet and just 2 episodes since- one after chest infection in december when I could only manage soup ( methinks Potassium levels dropped again!) I also have a Magnesium supplement as advised by cardiologist when I mentioned i was upping Potassium in diet- the balance is important The link Goldie sent is excellent and confirms a lot of what I have found applicable to me

[karim123]

Its good for health not only for water but food as well, try it and you will see your self,

[ILowe]

For anyone taking warfarin, I need to reinforce the warning against fasting. Usually it increases the INR and there are many reports of this increase being dangerous. valvereplacement.org/forums...

Several Muslim cardiologists have warned me not to fast. Not everyone agrees on this! A recent article says it is no big deal for Ramadan except that on resuming normal life after adjusting dosage during the fast there was a dramatic decrease in the INR in the first week. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

So, if you want to fast for a day or two or longer, or are obliged to because of other illnesses that make you go off your food and eat very little, or have diarrhoea or vomiting, what should you do? Unfortunately, guidance on this common scenario is not that common [sigh]. This is what I have learned as a self-doser to do.

1/ Test your INR promptly if possible. If the INR is high, then reduce your warfarin dose.

2/ Since fasting increases the INR you need margin: make sure your INR is the lower end of your range

3/ If it is just one day and your INR is low, then this is similar to missing a day of taking warfarin, so can probably be ignored.

4/ Consider reducing the dose for a time, in compensation. This is complicated because of the time lag between dose and level.

5/ Unless under medical supervision, or unless the INR is 5 or more, I must NOT stop the warfarin.

Someone needs to research and tell us how to compensate for fasting using oral Vit K. Individual reaction to Vit K is one of many complicating variables.

[mstp]

I learned this from a nutritionist:

When you are dehydrated the liver sends out cholesterol to surround the cells to keep moisture in. If the cells contain some of the 'nasties' that continually invade our bodies the 'nasties' are also prevented from leaving by the cholesterol.

It thus isnt a good idea to restrict fluid intake.