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Studies show that intermittent fasting may have benefits for the body, brain and longevity, but it's not for everyone.

Edited and resized image of Ursula Spaulding is available on Unsplash

Intermittent fasting is a worldwide practice in the religious world and fitness. People practice intermittent fasting to lose weight, improve health, and purify their thinking. Many studies show that it can have benefits for the body, brain and longevity (see studies here: 1, 2, 3).

What is Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that alternates periods of fasting and feeding. It doesn't specify what foods you should eat, but When must eat them.

Common methods of intermittent fasting involve fasting for 16 hours daily or fasting for 24 hours twice a week.

Fasting has been a practice throughout human evolution. Old hunter-gatherers had no supermarkets, refrigerators, or food available year-round. Sometimes they couldn't find anything to eat. As a result, humans have evolved to be able to function without food for long periods of time.

In fact, fasting from time to time is more natural than always eating 3-4 (or more) meals a day.

Fasting is also often done for religious or spiritual reasons, including in Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism.

Intermittent Fasting Methods

There are several different ways to do intermittent fasting - all of which involve dividing the day or week into feeding and fasting periods. During fasting periods, you eat very little or nothing.

These are the most popular methods:

• The 16/8 method: also called the Leangains protocol, involves skipping breakfast and restricting your daily meal period to 8 hours, such as 1:00 - 9:00. Then you fast for 16 hours;
• Eat-Stop-Eat: This involves fasting for 24 hours, once or twice a week, for example, not eating dinner one day until dinner the next day.
• Diet 5: 2: With these methods, you consume only 500 to 600 calories on two non-consecutive days of the week, but eat normally on the other five days.

By reducing your calorie intake, all of these methods should promote weight loss, as long as you don't make up for it by eating too much during feeding periods.

Many people find the 16/8 method the simplest, most practicable, and easiest to follow. It is also the most popular.

How it affects cells and hormones

When you fast, many things happen in the body at the cellular and molecular level. The body adjusts hormone levels to make stored body fat more accessible. Cells also initiate important repair processes and alter gene expression.

Here are some changes that occur in the body when fasting:

• Human Growth Hormone: Growth hormone levels skyrocket, increasing up to five times. This has benefits for fat loss and muscle gain (4, 5, 6, 7);
• Insulin: Insulin sensitivity improves and insulin levels drop dramatically. Lower insulin levels make stored body fat more accessible (8);
• Cell repair: when fasting, your cells start cell repair processes. This includes autophagy, where cells digest and remove old, dysfunctional proteins that accumulate inside cells (9, 10);
• Gene expression: there are alterations in the function of genes related to longevity and protection against diseases (11, 12).

These changes in hormone levels, cell function, and gene expression are responsible for the health benefits of intermittent fasting.

A powerful tool for weight loss

Weight loss is the most common reason for people to experience intermittent fasting (13). By eating fewer meals, intermittent fasting can lead to an immediate reduction in calorie intake.

• Calories: do they matter?

In addition, intermittent fasting alters hormone levels to facilitate weight loss.

In addition to lowering insulin and increasing growth hormone levels, it increases the release of fat-burning hormone. Due to these hormonal changes, short-term fasting can increase the metabolic rate by 3.6 to 14% (14, 15).

Studies show that intermittent fasting can be a very powerful tool for weight loss.

A review of studies found that this dietary pattern can cause weight loss of three to 8% over three to 24 weeks, which is a significant amount compared to what most weight loss studies show.

According to the same study, people also lost 4-7% of their waist circumference, indicating a significant loss of harmful belly fat that accumulates around their organs and causes disease.

Another study showed that intermittent fasting causes less muscle loss than the more standard method of continuous caloric restriction.

However, remember that if you binge eat and eat large amounts during your feeding periods, you won't lose any weight.

health benefits

Many studies have been carried out on intermittent fasting, both in animals and in humans. These studies have shown that it can have significant benefits for weight management, body health, brain health, and longevity.

The main benefits of intermittent fasting include:

• Weight loss: intermittent fasting can help you lose weight and belly fat without having to restrict calories (1, 13);
• Insulin resistance: Intermittent fasting can reduce insulin resistance, lowering blood sugar by 3 to 6% and fasting insulin levels by 20 to 31%, which should protect against type 2 diabetes (1);
• Inflammation: some studies show reductions in markers of inflammation, a major factor in many chronic diseases (17, 18, 19);
• Heart Health: Intermittent fasting can lower LDL cholesterol, blood triglycerides, inflammatory markers, blood sugar and insulin resistance - all risk factors for heart disease (1, 20, 21);
• Cancer: Animal studies suggest that intermittent fasting may prevent cancer (22, 23, 24, 25)
• Brain Health: Intermittent fasting increases a hormone in the brain that helps new nerve cells grow. It can also protect against Alzheimer's disease (26, 27, 28, 29)
• Longevity: Intermittent fasting can prolong the lifespan of rats. Studies have shown that fasting rats lived 36 to 83% longer (30, 31).

Remember that studies of intermittent fasting are still in their early stages. Many of the studies were small, short-term, or performed in animals. Many questions still need to be answered in human studies (32).

Simplify your healthy lifestyle

Eating healthy is simple, but it can be difficult to maintain. One of the main obstacles is all the work needed to plan and cook healthy meals.

Intermittent fasting can make things easier because you don't have to plan, cook, or clean up after meals.

Who should be careful or avoid it?

Intermittent fasting is certainly not for everyone. If you are underweight or have a history of eating disorders, you should not fast without consulting a health care professional. In such cases, it can be downright harmful.

Should women fast?

There is evidence that intermittent fasting may not be as beneficial for women as it is for men.

One study showed that it improved insulin sensitivity in men, but it worsened blood sugar control in women.

Although human studies on this topic are not available, studies in rats have found that intermittent fasting can make females too thin, masculine, infertile, and cause loss of cycles (34, 35).

• What is the menstrual cycle?

There are a number of reports of women whose menstrual period stopped when they started intermittent fasting and returned to normal when they resumed their previous eating pattern.

For these reasons, women should beware of intermittent fasting.

If you have fertility problems and/or are trying to get pregnant, consider postponing intermittent fasting for now. This dietary pattern is probably also a bad idea if you are pregnant or nursing.

Safety and Side Effects

Hunger is the main side effect of intermittent fasting. You may also feel weak and your brain may not function as well as it used to.

This may only be temporary as it may take time for your body to adjust to the new mealtime.

Remember, get medical help before starting intermittent fasting.

This is particularly important if you:

• have diabetes
• Have problems with blood sugar regulation
• have low blood pressure
• take medications
• is underweight
• Has a history of eating disorders.
• is trying to get pregnant
• Has a history of amenorrhea
• are you pregnant or breastfeeding

All that said, intermittent fasting has an exceptional safety profile. There is nothing dangerous about not eating for a while if you are healthy and well nourished.

Common questions

Here are answers to the most common questions about intermittent fasting.

1. Can I drink fluids while fasting?

Yes. Water, coffee, tea and other non-caloric drinks are good. Do not add sugar to your coffee. Coffee can be particularly beneficial during a fast as it can alleviate hunger. But it can increase anxiety and change blood pressure. Learn more in the article: "Caffeine: from therapeutic effects to risks".

2. Can I skip breakfast?

Yes, if you make sure to eat healthy foods for the rest of the day, the practice is perfectly healthy. The problem is that some people skip breakfast and end up eating junk food throughout the day.

• Adolescents who skip breakfast can develop obesity

3. Can I take supplements while fasting?

Yes. However, keep in mind that some supplements, such as fat-soluble vitamins, may work better when taken with meals.

• Psyllium: understand what it is for and use it to your advantage

4. Can I work out on an empty stomach?

Yes, fasting exercises are good. Some people recommend taking branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) before a fasted workout.

• What are amino acids and what are they for

5. Does fasting cause muscle loss?

All weight loss methods can cause muscle loss, which is why it's important to lift weights and keep your protein intake high. But one study showed that intermittent fasting causes less muscle loss than regular caloric restriction.

6. Will fasting slow down my metabolism?

No. Studies show that short-term fasts do increase metabolism (14, 15) However, longer fasts of three or more days can suppress metabolism (36).

7. Should children fast?

Allowing your child to fast is a bad idea.