An experiment helps to decipher how fasting impacts the human physique | Health & Wellness | EUROtoday

Research continues to build up proof that intermittent fasting, longer than what we follow day by day whereas we sleep, might have well being advantages. It has been noticed that while you cease consuming for lengthy sufficient, the physique switches power sources and begins to devour fats shops. This helps to reduce weight, which, in flip, improves hypertension or glucose ranges, though long-term follow-ups are missing to point out whether or not it’s an consuming fashion that may be maintained for a very long time. Some research have additionally proven advantages on the immune system, the cardiovascular system or insulin resistance, which is behind diabetes, however the mechanisms that specify these observations will not be well-known.

Technologies that enable us to measure proteins circulating within the blood supply the opportunity of investigating the molecular modifications that happen once we quick, to higher perceive their advantages and potential dangers. This permits us to start to settle a number of the most lasting doubts concerning the true mechanisms behind a follow, that of intermittent fasting, that has acquired a lot consideration these days. Now, a global staff of scientists has printed an article within the journal Nature Metabolism through which they clarify how they’d 12 volunteers consuming solely water for seven days. They measured the degrees of about 3,000 proteins earlier than, throughout and after fasting and crossed that information with genetic data from different research to estimate what advantages could possibly be obtained with the noticed protein variations.

Although there are solely 12 topics, the methodology permits us to gather plenty of data. As anticipated, the individuals within the examine misplaced weight, 5.7 kilos on common, divided between fats and muscle. However, three days after stopping the quick, they regained muscle mass, however not fats. In addition to this putting information, the scientists, led by Claudia Langenberg, from Queen Mary University of London, noticed a change within the composition of the proteins discovered within the blood from the tip of the second day of fasting and the start of the third.

“That increase [de proteínas beneficiosas] “It is exponential from day three of fasting and we hypothesize that these are changes that are not only related to the weight loss of the participants, which is very stable throughout the experiment,” explains Maik Pietzner, co-author of the study and researcher. at the Berlin Health Institute, at the Charité hospital. These variations would affect, for example, proteins that prevent the deterioration of neurons. For Pietzner, his work implies that, “although this does not rule out that [el ayuno que dura solo unas horas] have small beneficial effects” past weight reduction, “the message of these results is that you need two or three days of fasting for this change to occur, these internal resources to begin to be used and, possibly, different types of metabolic programs in different organs.

For the German researcher, reducing the hours of the day at which you can eat is a simpler way than counting calories at each meal to reduce how much you eat each day. However, longer fasts can have beneficial effects with specific applications. “I find the effect in the treatment of resistant epilepsy very interesting. When drugs don't help, you can still try a ketogenic diet (a low-carbohydrate diet), which mimics the effect of prolonged fasting,” explains Pietzner. “What we have seen is that when fasting begins to raise the levels of ketone bodies in the blood, changes occur in specific structural proteins in the brain,” he provides. Although extended fasting doesn’t treatment epilepsy, it might probably mitigate the signs, as occurs with rheumatoid arthritis.

With medical supervision

For different ailments, the researchers noticed that extended fasting lowered the quantity of some proteins that promote the onset of coronary coronary heart illness. However, in addition they noticed an elevated danger of thrombi. “That's why it's important for people to be aware of the need for medical guidance when applying these types of extreme interventions, because there are also people at higher risk of suffering adverse consequences,” says Pietzner.

Benjamin Horne, professor at Stanford University (USA), believes that “due to the small sample of the study, with only 12 participants, it is not clear how significant this three-day delay is” within the impact of fasting. “Many other studies with more participants, in which weight loss was intentionally inhibited or minimal, have documented changes in proteins circulating in the blood 20 or 24 hours after the start of a water-only fast,” he explains. he. Malu Martínez Chantar, researcher on the CIC bioGUne of Derio (Vizcaya), additionally warns of the small measurement of the cohort, and remembers the constructive results of shorter fasting detected in sufferers with autoimmune ailments or when it’s executed earlier than or after chemotherapy in folks with most cancers. Although she warns: “All types of nutritional intervention must be supported by a professional, because, for example, the ketone bodies generated by fasting can have a negative impact for some.”

One of the aims of research such because the one led by Langenberg is to establish the proteins which are modified by fasting with a view to design interventions that may alter the identical mechanisms with out giving an individual seven days with out consuming greater than water. “The development of these precision therapies could be beneficial for everyone, but, above all, for people who cannot carry out a fast of this type due to poor health or other reasons,” Horne assesses. Martínez Chantar considers it essential to know exactly the modifications that happen in our physique once we cease consuming, additionally in the long run. “It is necessary that these studies be carried out in the longer term because we do not know what the effects of fasting sustained for a long time are on aspects such as longevity,” she factors out.

While the results of fasting on the physique are revealed, you will need to bear in mind a warning from one of many gurus of the topic, the biochemist from the University of Southern California, Valter Longo: “That fasting is good, bad or neutral, It means nothing: like eating, some types of fasting are very good and others very bad.”

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