Towards More Rigor in the Use of Fasting as a Therapy – Fight Aging!

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2021-06-22 23:30:03

Fasting produces benefits to health that are meaningful in comparison to the cost of this intervention - it is free, and the health benefits are reliable and repeatable. When it comes to improved metabolism and long-term health benefits, no medical technology is yet established to do better than the practice of intermittent fasting or calorie restriction in people without severe medical conditions. Senolytic therapies should hopefully greatly improve on this performance in older individuals, but that data has yet to emerge. As researchers point out here, fasting is not usually rigorously applied in medical practice. There are groups working on approaches, for example the fasting mimicking diet that is intended to set a standard for how to apply reduced calorie intake as a therapy. But more generally, much work is left to accomplish if fasting is to be integrated into medical practice in the same way as pharmacological approaches have been.

Recently, fasting has become one of the most compelling topics of the Nutrition Era. In the last five years, interest has passed from the Mediterranean to the Ketogenic Era, including the concept of caloric restriction and 'only water' fasting. Recently, research in animal models and humans has highlighted the potential health-promoting physiological responses to fasting including ketogenesis, hormone modulation, reduced oxidative stress and inflammation, and increased stress resistance, lipolysis, and autophagy. Although the panorama of evidence on fasting and caloric restriction is wide, there is a lack of a correct and safe fasting protocol to guide nutritionists and physicians in its application.