According to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health 2019 review article in the journal Nutrients: “Intermittent fasting promotes weight loss and may reduce risk factors linked to heart disease, including diabetes, high blood pressure, unhealthy blood lipid levels, and inflammation.” Also,there are many studies show that intermittent fasting (IF) can have significant effects on our body and brain. IF is very popular in health, fitness, loosing weight lifestyles and it is great for short term boost of your metabolism. I do not follow any type of fasting that restricting water as we know water is essential for our body which is made of approximately 70 percent water. I started looking into it because I have hormonal imbalance condition and my work schedule won’t allow me to have freedom of taking several meals during the day. I choose IF for my health condition because it makes a difference in hormonal level, cell function, Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), and anti-aging than just because of the traditional weight loss purpose. Keep in mind that I am not on any type of medications but only migraine medication and vitamins taken for general health.
Generally when I’m on work schedule, I finish my dinner by 8pm, go to bed around 11 pm, wake up at 5 am and my first break is noon time, so that is 16 hours without breakfast or any meals, just my coffee and water in between. I follow my regular balanced diet for the rest of the day. We cannot just eat bad food after that 16 hours because it defeats the purpose of fasting and damages our health. It is the 16/8 method in IF as it works out for my line of work schedule. According to Harvard Health Publishing, IF is a solution to hormonal imbalances because when there’s no food consumption, our insulin levels will go down and our fat cells can release their stored sugar which is used as energy. It helps me feel less bloated as one of my symptoms. It helps my body and my brain to decrease inflammation by reducing cytokines which are infection and immune responses. IF initiates cellular repair processes. I have skin eczema and I notice I get much less flare-up days. It increases neurogenesis (new neuron growth) enhancing synaptic plasticity and improves mood. (Mood swing is part of my hormonal imbalance symptoms also). Also, there is an increasing in human growth hormone that reducing fat cells and gaining muscle cells instead. For short term IF, it can boost metabolism rate as much as 14% as we find it decreases as we start aging. Intermittent fasting helps lessening my hormonal imbalance and maintaining my weight when I occasionally indulge in food and beverages with my friends.
My personal take on Intermittent Fasting is: IF can be part of a healthy weight loss or maintenance plan when we combine with a balanced diet and regular exercises. Here are the most popular methods if you are interested in intermittent fasting:
* The 16/8 method: Also called the Leangains protocol, it involves skipping breakfast and restricting your daily eating period to 8 hours, such as 1–9 p.m. Then you fast for 16 hours in between.
* Eat-Stop-Eat: This involves fasting for 24 hours, once or twice a week, for example by not eating from dinner one day until dinner the next day.
* The 5:2 diet: With this method, you consume only 500–600 calories on two nonconsecutive days of the week, but eat normally the other 5 days.
*Credits to Harvard Health Publishing and healthline.com
⚠️Disclaimer: Please consult with a physician or other healthcare professional before changing in your diets/medication/life style.
Thanks Koko, fasting is a great tool but isn’t suitable for everyone so we all have to find what works for us. HealthUnlocked have a fasting community Fasting and Furious so for more information please see:healthunlocked.com/fasting-...
Fasting seems to have taken second place during the pandemic and we’d love more members so any one interested in fasting please join the community as we have some very knowledgeable and experienced fasters who are also our friends on HE.
Jerry. 😊
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You’re welcome Jerry. 😊🙏 You’re right that fasting fasting is a great tool but isn’t suitable for everyone. Each individual’s health status plays an important role in designing the best diet plan. People call it fasting but to me eating fewer meals is healthier. What I learned is eating more frequent, small meals is just a myth, it doesn’t improve blood sugar control. Actually, fewer and larger meals can lower our daily blood sugar level. The same as eating fewer in the evening can reduce average blood sugar levels.
Yes Jerry, I’ll definitely check out Fasting community. Thank you for your suggestion. 😁🙏
Yeah I'd say there maybe some truth to that. But I also think eating frequent small meals is a good thing because then you won't over indulge yourself because you'll be feeling so hungry, thereby making your body work harder. If you're eating well, you should feel hungry around every 2-3 hours.
Yes Kainan, if it is healthy snack then it can keep you from hunger for long time; hence, you don’t feel the need to keep snacking. Regarding to meal frequency, check this out: healthline.com/nutrition/11...
Thanks. I wasn't aware of the neurogenesis, but but after googling found that there has been many papers on this since I did my initial research 18 months ago, including just 2 days ago! sciencedaily.com/releases/2...
And I spotted a typo. I think you meant "reduces cytokines"
You’re welcome Subtle-badger 😊🙏 Thank you for the link, absolutely brilliant take on neurogenesis. It is possible for us to create neuron. Actually, we generate hundreds of new neurons each day but stress factors, lack of sleeps/exercises , bad eating habit can slow down this process. Fasting is so brilliant (to me is skipping meals from time to time) has many health benefits. Yes, it’s supposed to be reducing cytokines, thank you. 😁
Cytokines are important to have. Which cytokines in particular are you referring to please? As someone with a very rare cytokine dysregulation I would be interested to hear more?Thank you.
My general feeling is that people in the West are just eating too frequently. Three meals a day plus snacks is probably not historically normal, and it appears to be driven by poor diet (which causes poor blood sugar control and therefore a relentless need to eat/snack).
If you're eating a healthy diet, you should find that it's possible to go for many hours without eating. I eat twice a day with occasional doses of coffee. My interval between dinner and breakfast is usually 15-18 hours, and I never experience the kind of "OMG if I don't eat I'm going to die now" hunger that I did while eating an unhealthy, fattening diet (ie., the NHS EatWell Plate). I don't use the word "fasting". I just eat when (a) I'm hungry and (b) it's convenient.
Hi TheAwfulToad, yes people from the West do tend to eat too often when it is okay to skip meals from time to time, it actually is a better approach to either loosing weights or improving blood sugar control. Snacking on junks can satisfy people feeling of hunger temporarily and they do so frequently that actually increase their calories intake throughout the day. However, the choice of healthy snacks that high in protein and fiber can help reducing hunger and keep us full for very long time.
Yes, I wouldn’t focus much on the term “fasting” and I am with you that eat when I am hungry and aware of what I eat 😁👍
Yes Hiba but my interest lies in the particular mention of cytokines and the effect that fasting has on cytokines. Cytokines produce an immune response to bacterial/fungal and viral infections. It's important to have cytokines as part of a healthy immune system. As someone with cytokine dysregulation on 3 of my ILs I'd really like to have more information.
It's something that my Profs have never mentioned to me but as we all know Western based medicine is very much based on pharmaceuticals. However, I must give credit to my team because they are very holistic.
I haven't had any response to the question and would be very grateful of any research, or explaination as it may help me and that's what it's all about right?
I am a bit confused why anyone would say they want to reduce cytokines? You either have them or you don't. And if you don't have them you can't fight infection and have an immune system that it like mine, full of holes leaving you unable to recognise not fight infection of any sort and makes you live in a bubble.
But I can understand it if someone wants to reduce inflammation/infection but that can only be done with cytokines
So ANY peer reviewed research on anything to improve my situation would be helpful.
We need a healthy immune system that responds appropriately to pathogens, and is dormant at other times.
Let me give you an example from my life. I got bitten by an insect near a river that often has sewage overflow. A friend ended up in hospital on an antibiotic drip after being bitten nearby. But I also have allergies. Anyway, I ended up with a red and itchy patch of skin bigger than a saucer. The doctor explained it well: "That's either your immune system responding appropriately to an infection, or it responding inappropriately to an allergen. They both look the same." But the thing is, inflammation isn't harmless; the swelling, the itchiness, the heat are all part of fighting the infection, but they also damage the tissues. That's a bargain we can live with when our body is fighting the infection, but to have that damage done for no reason is just harming our bodies. And if you have allergies all the time, your skin will become thin and damaged and you will never have the peace for the body to heal.
And it's the same with the insides of our bodies. Inflammation is useful - essential - for fighting infections, but many people have chronic inflammation; inflammation that never goes away even though there is no injury it's responding to. Their bodies are being damaged by the inflammation, and they are tired and in pain all the time. And take to it's logical end is the horror of the cytokine storm. The people dying of covid generally had fought off the actual virus. What killed them was their immune systems going out of control and destroying their bodies.
This isn't an answer to your question, exactly. It's a way to help you understand that while an underactive immune system is a bad thing, so is an over-active one. My guess would be that IF wouldn't quell an already repressed immune system, but would probably help the body to rebalance. I could even imagine that giving your body a rest for digestion could give it the space and resources to rebuild your systems. But that is a total guess, I don't know if any research has been done around this.
There are a lot of papers on the subject if you do a simple google search. I don't understand enough about cytokines to make head or tails of them, but with your understanding you may be able to get the information you need.
Thank you.I well and truly come under the catagory of a dysfunctional immune system. Despite having a cytokine deregulation to IL2,6 and 10, I also have chronic inflammation from auto-immune disease.
I know plenty about internal inflammation as I have experienced this chronically for the past 6 years when it went into overdrive, although I've had it all my life.
I was just wondering how the specifics of IF would help me. However, after looking into it further I don't think I could do IF as I need to eat with all of my medications and it would be impossible to achieve.
I'm always on the look out for more knowledge though.
There is a nonsense (IMHO) thing called dry fasting; but the sort of fasting generally recommended is water fasting, which includes black tea and coffee and other unsweetened, zero calorie drinks - if you can think of any. A splash of milk or cream is OK if you can abide black coffee or tea.
That's some good stuff Koko! You so smaaat! I usually do intermittent fasting though I will have a glass of milk in the morning, and my first actual meal will be around 1pm. Though on days where I know I have to put in a lot of work early in the morning I know I have to have some proteins and carbs or else I'll feel tired and can't function well. You mention the benefits of weight loss and reduce inflammation and I can say that rings true for me. I don't feel as bloated and my mind feels sharper during periods of fasting 👍
Thank you Kainan 😊🙏. I’m glad during your periods of fasting you feel light and sharp mind as I feel the same way. You do eat well Kainan with good source of protein and carbs as I know 😁. Have a good day in school! 🤗☀️🌺
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