Not here is some Deepak Chopra figure to explain it to you in voodoo
Please provide your extraordinary evidence. Ideally in the form of multiple strong, well-vetted and well respected studies in peer-reviewed journals. Otherwise I'll presume you're full of it.
What is the first claim though? Is it that extraordinary evidence needs to be provided for the claim that a poison (chemotherapy) is a cure for cancer?
You will likely say that there is evidence in "multiple strong, well-vetted and well respected studies in peer-reviewed journals".
But then I would question the authority of peer-reviewed journals. Do know about replication crisis?
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778 : "According to a survey published in the journal Nature last summer, more than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis : "a number of efforts have been made to re-investigate classic results, to determine both the reliability of the results and, if found to be unreliable, the reasons for the failure of replication."
Another reason I dismiss most scientific authority is on account of funding. If funding is controlled by government, the military and private corporations (as it is), then this triad can cooperate to fund or de-fund whatever studies they like.
To see what I mean about funding, we can look at my imagined idea that 'you want to prove the health benefit of cold potatoes'. First you can fund 10 studies. Let's say 2 support the thesis, 2 refute it and 6 are inconclusive. You can then further fund the 2 that support it. And rinse and repeat. Pretty soon you could have enough studies to create a whole new field exclaiming the wonder of cold potatoes.
Unfortunately, this really is how science works. Science is a money making operation, and is politicised. A common sense idea like fasting for cancer, or not eating carbohydrates to get rid of diabetes, has no economic benefit. Scientists themselves can work within the system with good intentions, but can be more or less unaware of the machinations and agendas at play.
If you want to talk about solutions, you would take a totally different tack. At present we have a sickness not a wellness industry. Companies get money from you when you are sick. The more sick you are, the better it is for their monetary return. The ideal patient is someone who will be ill for a long time, which is a perverse incentive. Really, you want a wellness industry, where if you are well, those ensuring your health get paid. As they are incentivised to keep you well, you should expect good advice - their financial well-being depends on it.
Let's start by not conflating all kinds of cancer and all kinds of chemotherapy, because it's not a single disease, and the outcomes vary greatly.
But, for instance, survival rates for testicular cancer have risen significantly (or even dramatically) since the invention and introduction of the chemotherapy treatment that is being used for it today. If detection isn't overly delayed, the cure rate in the developed world today is around 95 to 100 percent.
So let's please, please, please, not go for cheap "chemotherapy = poison" rhetoric. I have first-hand experience with the adverse effects, but you can't dismiss a nearly 100% cure rate.
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Regarding what you more generally wrote, it's true that financial interests affect and direct the pharma industry. There are several adverse effects from that, such as research not being directed at areas with potential health benefits but low profitability, and also over-marketing (and thus possibly over-prescription) in other areas. It would also be great if medical research were less tightly bound to funding from the industry and rather got its funding from public sources instead. (That wouldn't make it non-politicized, but direct financial interests might not be as significantly involved.)
But it would be rather misguided to think that there aren't actual working treatments coming out of the industry and research as well. Sometimes those treatments are the difference between life and death. Let's not discount that.
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The significantly improved survival rates for TC are pretty well-known, but a couple of sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testicular_cancer#Prognosis
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/181433
https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JCO.2014.56.0896
edit: line breaks between URLs
But even so, it would be interesting to see numbers anyway.
Obviously, I'm joking.
But did you know that iatrogenic deaths - deaths caused by doctors - are the 3rd largest cause of death in the US?
And when you see the numbers, bear in mind that these are only the official reported numbers! I can only imagine how many other deaths must be caused by doctors but get explained as natural deaths.
But that you are making a mistake in thinking you do have something.
You assume that poisoning people to kill the cancer is a sensible treatment. There is supportive evidence for that, but I'm saying the evidence is actually PR for big pharma, not the unbiased evidence you think it is.
So, from my point of view, we both have no evidence.
But I am saying you are mislead when you think you have evidence.
I don't say that there are no good things coming out of the medical industry. Sometimes there are good things, and when it comes to bodily trauma, I think the medical profession is excellent at stitching people back together again.
But I'm especially interested in wellness and optimal living. I genuinely don't feel the industry has anything to offer on that front. Food is probably the most important 'treatment' we can do, but the industry is pretty silent on this.
My anecdotal experience, is with a relative who was diagnosed with diabetes. It was never explained to them that if they don't eat carbs they won't have the disease - cutting out bread, rice, etc was too 'out there'. The advice was about how to manage the process, cut back a little on the bread, inject insulin etc - the relative ended up on a high level of medication. I think all that could have been avoided by eating appropriately for the disease, advice which that person has taken (a bit) with a corresponding drop in symptoms + medication. To my mind, it is not so radical to cut those foods out of the diet completely if they are harmful!
Its not that doctors intend to be mean or harmful, but they are taught in such a narrow way with medication at the heart of what they do. If they advise 'off menu' they stand to lose their license. The medical industry is in fact captured and beholden to big pharma.
Did you even know that there are alternative theories of disease? Namely - the terrain theory (Beauchamp). That what you eat and how you live is the main cause of disease. That disease (of all sorts) is a natural bodily process, as your body tries to heal - including cancer. Eg, at a lower level, when you have a cold, this is your body clearing your system. There is mucus and a fever. The worst thing to do is to take medication to suppress this process - but that is the first thing most of us will do.
Anyway, for that and other reasons, I find the terrain theory makes a lot of sense, and it is something that does not require an intermediary to tell you what you need to do (eg a doctor, testing, etc). If you get it right you enjoy optimal health. That is the position that I'm arguing from - that food and proper management of what and how we eat (inc breaks such as fasting) is probably the best healer. If I were ever seriously ill, my first course of action would be as per my initial comment - a prolonged juice fast.
Cheers
Various diseases have such different causes that we cannot really expect to proscribe a common theory to them. The symptoms of cold are mostly caused by the immune reaction (and medical doctors also acknowledge that). Sometimes you may need to curb that immune reaction e.g. with antipyretic medication because the reaction could be disproportionately strong and be dangerous in and of itself; sometimes it may be best to just let it be. Sometimes it doesn't really matter one way or the other, and you could either take symptom-relieving medication to ease how you feel or elect not to.
(FWIW, I generally prefer not to take medication for a cold, partially because it doesn't help the healing -- in the case of cold, only time does -- and partially because artificially improving the symptoms might make you feel better than you actually are and thus make you believe you can already do more when you should still rest. So I kind of agree with you that people may take medication too lightly in some cases, but I certainly wouldn't treat all disease the same, because different disease are very different in many regards.)
In cancer, your own cells have begun to divide and grow uncontrollably. Normally cells have various kinds of built-in controls for growth and longevity; in cancer those controls have failed, and not just one of them but a number of them at once. Since there's always a nonzero probability of a mutation causing one of those mechanisms to fail, there's always a smaller but still nonzero probability of enough of them failing that the result is going to be a malignant tumor.
I fail to see why we should consider a tumorous growth as a reaction of the body trying to heal itself from something else. First of all, from what; and secondly, how would that even begin to accomplish the goal? On the other hand, the generally accepted understanding that it's just cells where enough things have wrong that they have gone into uncontrolled division and growth makes perfect sense.
Again, your immune system is going to (or at least should) react to that, but that's not what causes the disease, or perhaps not even most of the symptoms. (I lack the understanding to comment on how much of the immediate symptoms of cancer are caused by immune reaction, not to mention that cancer is again not a single consistent disease, but in any case, let's not pretend that cells that are nonfunctional and uncontrollably taking over space from your healthy tissue isn't going to be a disaster in most cases regardless of that.)
Also, many factors influence the risk of cancer, including nutrition. That's also undoubtedly true of many other diseases, and medical science agrees on that. (Different studies might come up with different results on what exactly those factors might be, but that's largely due to the complexity of the topic.) In some disease (e.g. cardiovascular) it might even be the most significant one.
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It's true that medicine traditionally focuses on treating disease, not on what generates wellness beyond that. I agree that there's a lot that can be achieved outside of medicine that can be beneficial for wellness (and even health).
It's also true that big pharma probably has an effect on doctors and their education. However, I don't think that makes medicine generally suspect. Rather, the truth is more nuanced and in between. Doctors, especially at major hospitals, have significant clinical experience in their fields, and that's not immediately affected by pharmacological research. Also, not all medical (or even all pharmacological) research is funded by the industry. Criticism of big pharma or even medical research is not without merit, but I think the impression I get from your comments is too cynical of the field.
While wellness is something where it's often best to listen to yourself, I would urge anyone with serious illness to seek medical treatment. That's certainly so at least in case of disease such as cancer which have well-established and evidence-based treatments.
The terrain model is well worth looking into. It works of the principle that the body has all the abilities it needs to manage itself, but that issues arise when we overload it. So if we eat bad food, too many toxins, etc our system cannot cope and force a response. Initially that would be something like a cold. But when things are more serious, it progress and tries to isolate toxicity, hence cancer. Did you know that cancer does not survive in an alcaline environment? But that sugar, coffee, carbs, etc are acid forming?
I think your instinct is right about allowing a cold to proceed naturally. Medical intervention is not necessary. What you really want is dark mucus to be released - you are really clearing out your system at the point.
You are right to say that I am very cynical about big pharma. I am. There is simply no incentive for them to heal you, and every incentive for them to support you in a protracted disease. Their profits are best when they are managing you all the way down.
Unfortunately, if you are working on a very long term plan, and have huge resources, it isn't as complex as you think to create a situation where the medical establishment works in service of big pharma. You would need to capture the governance steering apparatus only - ie that bit that gets to say what is a valid treatment or not. And then you wait for that to feed through the system. I think that the US medical system has been run that way since 1940's.
I don't get the submitted title here claiming that it protects from side effects. The study does not mention this at all, just that the side effects are similar despite omission of dexamethason in the fasting arm of the trial - it increases appetite, so makes sense to omit it if you want any reasonable compliance rate.
As with any fasting and dieting study, compliance is moderate at best. In this study, only 33% of patients were compliant for at least 4 cycles of chemotherapy, out of 12 cycles total. Most of them were compliant with at least once cycle though.
Overall, we need some more research on this in a larger trial. This paper is a call for funders to do just that - the trial ended prematurely due to needing to include more patients but there was a lack of funding to do so.
I'm currently doing research on a similar patient population, so open to answer any questions.
Basically, this?
HAS AGGRESSIVE TUMOR ---> CANNOT DO THE FMD
HAS SLOW-GROWING TUMOR ---> ABLE TO MAINTAIN FMD
Of course, there could be some factors determining aggressiveness and response to chemotherapy that we do not know yet. Unfortunately I'm not in regular patient contact so can't say a whole lot about typical side effect profiles of chemotherapy, but I've heard some anecdotal evidence that for patients treated with immunotherapy, the more severe the side effects, the better the response.
Occam's razor, patients couldn't stick with the diet.
What are some of the downsides to doing this?
One potential downside to steady regimented fasting _when combined_ with caloric restriction, is a decrease in your basal metabolic rate (BMR).
Our bodies are very good at adapting to "the new normal" and will optimize itself to function on the fuel you give it. This is true in both directions. If you eat less, your body will learn to live on less, and if you eat more, eventually your body will ramp up to try and burn more energy to try and reach an equilibrium.
When fasting, it's important to keep your caloric intake up during brief eating windows. Otherwise, your body will adjust, and when you stop fasting, the slightly increased caloric intake will cause you to gain weight before your body readjusts to the new normal. Many fasting theorists suggest that fasting at random intervals is the best strategy for weight loss without reducing BMR. If your body is used to burning 3000 calories a day just to keep you alive, it can't ramp down those cells immediately so it needs to instead convert stored fat to energy and burn that instead.
These aren't fasting specific, but oftentimes in the western world, we begin fasting as a means to an end (weight loss) and often combine it with other dietary changes, like eating less/healthier.
The other downside is literal starvation or the development of an eating disorder, but those are pretty obvious.
I saw a low-budget documentary on YouTube[0] a couple of weeks ago talking about "fasting retreats" in Russia and now parts of Europe that are seeing great results with patients water fasting for 2+ weeks. They're treating everything from Diabetes to arthritis and dementia. Pretty cool stuff.
Personally, I definitely have seen the light and will likely continue fasting regularly in some form the rest of my life. Since I just turned 26 last month, that's going to be a while! I'm currently half way through a 72 hour fast and feeling great. Just had a cup of coffee and some electrolyte spiked water this morning. I still have about 50 pounds to lose but I'm hopefully for my future now and I'm a lot healthier.
Wish you & your wife strength and all the best.
Do anything you can to help her be healthy. Diet is of extreme impoortance.
I'm trying to get people to read the book. Average people, for sure, but also people on boards of research institutions. I wrote this to one of them: https://josh.works/mike-clayville-can-have-a-huge-impact-on-...
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23496164-tripping-over-t...
The ideas contained in the book are explosive, with profound implications. It's a riveting read.
Does this not qualify as a protective effect?
My layman guess is that the best schedule is probably the one you can adhere to.
From being a Roman cure for epileptic seizures, through the integral practice in most religions, and to the 21st century where we start to prove that it increases both healthspan and lifespan.
I find it quite interesting that something so simple, which practically anybody can do, can have such a positive effect on one's life. You are literally healing and regenerating yourself by doing nothing! And instead of compounding medical bills you actually save money!
Thank you modern science for validating my no longer fringe medical beliefs :)
I had cancer (lymphoma) and did three years of chemo (mostly maintenance/preventative, as it was wiped out in the first couple months). I actually gained an enormous amount of weight, because the steroids I was on (and all the weed I smoked) made me ravenously hungry. If I end up in that situation again, I'm going to make a concerted effort to dramatically reduce my calorie intake, and in particularly carbs, because I've read a lot about the potential benefits of starving the cancer out.
https://l-nutra.com/pages/fasting-mimicking-diet
If I understand correctly this is a low-calorie diet, which is easier to follow than a strict water-only diet, but they claim it is equally effective. They recommend it also for healthy individuals, 5 days a month. Does anyone have experience with it?
Almost no one reads these papers when stuff like this gets posted on HN.
And there is shameful statistical fuckery afoot in this paper. People are only repeating the hype statistics at the top of the paper.
Their "pathological response" rates touted at the top of paper only come from the 1/3 of women able to actually carry out the diet. This is the "per-protocol" language in the abstract. An honest evaluation here would be "intention to treat" and analyze chemo responses in every assigned to each arm.
And they do that evaulation, but bury it later in their paper. Turns out when you account for the 2/3 of women who can't do that fasting, there's NO DIFFERENCE in response rate:
"The overall pCR rate was 11.7% and did not differ between the two groups (10.8% in FMD group versus 12.7% in control group; OR 0.830, 95% CI 0.282–2.442, P = 0.735."
But hold on. Slow down. There's a good chance the "women who fasted had better chemo responses" story completely REVERSES cause and effect. Here's how:
WOMEN 1 - Has indolent biology, slower growing tumor than your average breast cancer at this stage.
- Symptoms: Less pain, neuropathy, less swelling, tumors not affecting distant organs as much
WOMEN 2 - Has aggressive biology, faster growing tumor than your average breast cancer at this stage.
- Symptoms: More pain, neuropathy, more swelling, tumors begin to affect distant organs
Clearly WOMEN 1.
People about to enter hospice and pass on in a few weeks are gonna be way less able to complete it than someone who has months left to live.
But all you've done is stratify your patients.
The triathalon doesn't make anyone live longer.
In the study they say "FMD" or "Fasting mimicking diet", in particular, Xentigen (ProLon?), which is sold by L-Nutra. These are "healthy plant-based meals". [0]
[0] https://l-nutra.com/pages/prolon-nutritional-information
Perhaps, completely changing one's environment. Example going from a city to live in a forrest, might also trigger different genetic pathways, and awaken the immune system.
Many narrative stories have this pattern of someone getting sick and retreating, going into nature, in pursuit of fresh air or sunshine.
If you can persuade the normal healthy cells to hunker down and stop dividing for a while, the killing effect of the drugs will concentrate on the cancerous cells alone. This is what fasting is expected to achieve. It is not alone in this regard, anything that inhibits mTOR (e.g. rapamycin) should in theory have similar effect.
How could we know if this was survivorship bias? What if the folks who can best comply with the calorie restrictions are those who are already in a good state?
When you fold back in those 2/3 of people on that arm, the response rate is the same:
"The overall pCR rate was 11.7% and did not differ between the two groups (10.8% in FMD group versus 12.7% in control group; OR 0.830, 95% CI 0.282–2.442, P = 0.735)."I am doing 18:6, so I generally eat from 12pm to 6pm. During that time I typically eat two meals, and one or two small snacks. I try to eat pretty healthy, but there have been plenty of times in the past 5 weeks when I've just pigged out at Waffle House. I still have lost significant weight.
I have two major recommendations: first, drink tons of water. I try to drink about 16oz of water every hour. Besides hydration, it helps a lot with hunger. You will get hungry at times. For me it isn't every day - some days it's easy to stay on track. Others, it's tough. When you're feeling hungry, chug water. It really helps. (tip: try sparkling water to change things up if you get sick of regular flat water).
Second, I recommend using an app to track your fasting. Mine was free and tracks your start and end times for fasting and tells you how long until your fasting period is over. It also lets you track your weight, and even water drinking progress if you want.
Last thing - the hardest day of fasting, by far, is the very first day. After that, it will get easier.
ETA another tip: If you're doing it for weight loss, don't weigh yourself every day. Your weight will fluctuate a pound or two from one day to the next, and even throughout the day. It can be demoralizing to fast for a day and then the scales tell you that you're up a pound. Instead, weigh yourself maybe twice a week, and always near the end of your fasting period.
-- Longo and Mattson
Is this autophagy?
In this interview with Dr. Eileen White, Chief Scientific Officer at the Rutgers Cancer Institute, she mentions that certain types of cancer cells can actually use the effects of autophagy to survive.
It's really unfortunate people use overloaded acronyms like this without a definition.
With almost half of America now obese, we are seeing the downside of ignoring good diet as COVID devastates those suffering from obesity and diabetes.
Ignore below...
Wasn't the whole impetus for getting "medicinal" marijuana for the snacking? Seems like someone is talking out both sides of their mouth.
Nonetheless glad to see additional evidence for fasting's multiple benefits.
Does it mean more deaths or less?
As a practictioner of fasting, I don't think that "modern" Ramadan has much to do with fasting anymore - at least, in the way I see fasting working for me. Reason being that at the end of each day of fasting, there is a very large amount of food being consumed, and I mean a lot. Fasting is about calorie restriction for sustained amount of time - modern Ramadan (based on the experience I had in Saudi, which is a very conservative country) is not really about restricting calories, but just shifting the time of the day in which A LOT of calories are ingested.
I agree with the basic premise that religious fasting is an often overlooked but beneficial practice in the modern era.
In India, for example, there are fasting days in a month and many have certain days of the week even where they fast.
Never over two years did I feel any of the mental clarity or more energy you speak of. I follow guys like Cole (snake diet) and even he speaks of the feeling of dying and lying in bed shivering on a 5-7 day.
Are you sure about the metal clarity and energy levels, because I and the folks I know who fast don't seem to have those affects.
Most days I feel amazing, some other days I feel quite tired and I experience some mental fog. I still haven't found the reason for such an oscillation.
I suspect it has to do with what I eat during the eating window (for instance, more sugarish food, more carbs, etc). I think I should record what I eat and compare it with the overall well-being to get to some conclusions.
Mentally however I found myself unable to have too many variables in my head and my mind was not more able to focus on something but less distracted with extraneous thoughts. I could if I wanted to shut off the chatter in my brain and meditation became very easy.
It is definitely a different mode for me and I do appreciate it but I'm told that many people in my family have ADD and that I might actually be showing symptoms that would go away when in ketosis.
It makes sense biologically you would get some heightened awareness mixed with periods of extreme lethargy as your body tried to preserve itself.
I'm very interested in reading more.
This was done in preparation for each chemo treatment.
I have actually completed a 10 day water only fast a few months ago (good use of lockdown), it takes my body around 4 to 5 days to switch completely to ketosis, then to the end of the fast I was burning through 1 pound/~0.5 kg of fat per day. You can watch it happen every morning when you weigh yourself.
i fast twice per week for ~30 hours and drink copious amounts of tea and coffee. but intermittent fasting also works, the really important information is that ketosis can begin after as little as 12 hours, so basically fast for a minimum 14 hours if you want any effect at all, and everything after that is bonus. no extras in your coffees btw, though a splash of milk / coconut oil in your breakfast coffee is acceptable :)
Also it would be weird to see people in those days, allegedly not having access to the cornucopia of yummy food we have in 2020, going into fasting. Maybe more diseases on average made them realize that the less fed survived better ?
Of course there are limits but when done right you end up with a plant that on average is stronger.
"Autophagy", that famous process which supposedly happens during fasting, that miraculously regenerates us, actually happens during caloric restriction, and it's actually a daily process that happens during the night, in everyone, while glycogen stores get naturally depleted.
And we have no evidence that increased autophagy levels are beneficial, quite the contrary, we have some evidence that, right after fasting, the immune system is suppressed. The bigger the caloric restriction, the larger effect on refeeding. An effect very relevant for malnourished populations that suddenly get access to food.
This is basically modern quackery, medical technobabble lacking any evidence other than obscure studies done on mice.
What "healers" and witches used to do, but taken to the next level.
And unfortunately it is also a recipe for serious eating disorders. Hello anorexia.
Is all that really necessary?
When it comes to human health, the unknowns are legion. Medical science is in its infancy, but too many act as though it's a mature discipline built upon rock-solid theories with few problems.
20 years ago, I noticed that my mental fog cleared up and I felt healthier when I ate very low carb, I looked to pioneers like Atkins and others who predicted my results much better than those pushing the "food pyramid". Those pioneers were called "quacks". I was told over and over by supposed experts: "Calories in equals calories out.", "A calorie is just a calorie.", "You're going to ruin your kidneys on a high protein, high fat diet.", and on and on.
The problem isn't science. Science is the best method we have to discover the nature reality. The problem is with science used as a religion or political weapon without humility or appreciation of its flaws and limitations.
Last I looked into it, we didn't really know the autophagy timeline in humans, because we can't really measure it. Of course there's a natural fasting window that every human adheres to while they sleep, but with food available at all times, three meals a day plus snacks, that window may be far smaller than what the body is evolutionarily adapted to. What if autophagy doesn't kick in properly until 10, 12 or 14 hours?
Anecdotally, I've been doing 16/8, 20/4 intermittent fasting and a couple of 24-48h fasts over the past 10 years and have not yet developed anorexia.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110222200902/http://www.soilan...
Anyway, so after I switched my diet I decided to give his FMD a go and was pleasantly surprised - it's pretty tough, the second and third day were the worst for me, I was just incredibly hungry (and honestly speaking I did'n really achieve any mental clarity during those days), just went on a ton of walks. But I felt I gained a lot of mental strength following that experience, it was easier for me change eating or drinking habits simply because this exercise of control over your most basic need really provides you with a boost of confidence.
You obviously also lose a lot of weight (around 4kg per week) and I've lost even more since then, maybe 20kg since the beginning of the year (though that's a combination of sport, this pescatarian Mediterranean diet, but probably also those 2 fasting sessions). I plan on doing it again, though I want to try out 'real' water fasting next time. I think this is a great starting-point into fasting, though.
Try eating breakfast at 10 am instead of 8(let’s say) for a couple of weeks.
Then see if you can hold off until noon without going to bed later.
If you can eat between the window of noon and 8PM you’re effectively on a 16/8 diet.
After you’re comfortable, try eating no later than 6PM, then try 4PM. Before you know it you’re on a 20/4 schedule.
At least in my experience, the sense of hunger is extremely tuned to one's internal clock. The body seems to absolutely know at what time of day it expects to eat. If I go a long time and never eat before 6 PM, I won't feel even a tinge of hunger until the evening. If I go on vacation, and eat lunch for a week, then the next day I'm ravenous by 12 PM.
The hardest thing about fasting is the transition. Once you've got a pattern, your body seems to pretty much just adjust and it becomes just as normal and effortless as eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. I say that because a lot of people try out fasting for a few days, suffer enormously and decide that the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Whereas I think if you get over the transition hump, most will find it's not nearly as bad as it seems to be when you first start out.
One technique that I think makes for a smooth transition is a modified version of partial fasting. To start, instead of completely abstaining during the fast window, restrict yourself to vegetables and berries. Don't touch the higher caloric density foods like meats, dairy, and starches inside the fast window. Truth be told, this probably isn't that bad a diet just to stay on forever, because it ups vegetable consumption so much. But if your goal is full fasting, it's a good way to make a full transition. Your body's internal clock starts getting used to much lower calories consumption in the fast window, but you don't have to feel like you're starving.
For me at least I go into fasting by first skipping breakfast for a few days, then skipping breakfast and lunch. Skipping dinner is mostly a mental hurdle because there’s so much psychological signaling that you should eat at dinner time and don’t really know what else to do with yourself. Going to bed without eating in a day feels weird at first.
I also make sure to get lots of electrolytes during all of this, magnesium glycinate and lite salt seem to do the trick. Otherwise I start to get shaky and have bad headaches.
The salt and other electrolytes is crucial as you mentioned. If you don't supplement you'll actually get some pretty intense cravings. It was the first time I understood why deer love salt licks. I would have licked on one of those like it was a tootsie pop.
Make sure that you get plenty of water and electrolytes.
Also, if 24 hours is too much, you can try intermittent fasting, and do 16 to 20 hour fasts.
It also seems that some people can't tolerate fasting for whatever reason, so GP might just not be cut out for it.
I have to think my initial comment was overly harsh as well, given Supplement 3.
I think all I can say is that it may be possible for this issue to affect their data once they have OS stats accumulated in five years, but it was unlikely to do anything to yield differences in adherence with these kinds of patients over this kind of follow-up length.
"The human fasting mimicking diet (FMD) program is a plant-based diet program designed to attain fasting-like effects while providing micronutrient nourishment (vitamins, minerals, etc.) and minimize the burden of fasting. It comprises proprietary vegetable-based soups, energy bars, energy drinks, chip snacks, chamomile flower tea, and a vegetable supplement formula tablet (Table S4). The human FMD diet consists of a 5 day regimen: day 1 of the diet supplies ∼1,090 kcal (10% protein, 56% fat, 34% carbohydrate), days 2–5 are identical in formulation and provide 725 kcal (9% protein, 44% fat, 47% carbohydrate)."
"Subjects in the FMD cohort consumed the provided experimental diet consisting of 3 cycles of 5 continuous days of FMD followed by 25 days of normal food intake."
Personally, when I started to eat moderately when fasting, I started to feel much better. Previously, I would be very tired when breaking the fast... I would be so full that I wouldn't be able to do anything except lie down.
I think that the current trends are due to people nowadays seeing it like a mega celebration, and they see that eating a lot and feeling tired after is just a sign of that celebration. Ramadan is more than just fasting, but I am going off-topic.
By the way, there's a sunnah in Islam to fast Monday's and Thursday's. Some here may find it beneficial.
The health benefits of fasting aren’t about total calorie restriction, but ARE about shifting when you eat to allow your body to kick over into the fasted state for a period of time to get the benefits of that.
I practice a 24 hour fast once a week, for spiritual and health benefits, not to lose weight, and enjoy a very full dinner after the 24 hour fast.
Ramadan looks very much to me to be about fasting, at least spiritually.
Still, it definitely gives you the opportunity to reset every year.
I don't know if that was always the case in history of this religion, maybe in the past the night meal was simply a shared meal with the group, of normal size.
It seems that in your case and mine, we're seeing something that has more to do with symbolism and morals (no gluttony, more thoughtful days, sharing, empathy).
In reading about Christian monastics I've found that their fasting practices are, and were even in the middle ages, much less dramatic than they seem at first glance, except in relatively rare cases. For one thing, many fasts aren't so much "don't eat" but "eat somewhat less, but still quite a bit", and there are tons of feast days to counter-balance that. And even those rules are thrown out for older monks and any who are ill, of course. You look at their calendar and think "damn, that's a lot of fasting!" but then you read accounts by actual monks and more detailed sets of rules and find they did very little actual no-eating fasting, in the typical case, and many "fast days" still involve a lot of eating.
I think it would be more common to find a lay practitioner adhering to the first five precepts.
Calories in calories out is 100% valid for weight loss. The problem is that people interpret it to somehow be a claim on overall health when it is just a statement on weight gain and loss, which while can be beneficial to health, isn't everything.
A calorie is just a calorie, so much as color is color. Its a single property of food that can be compared. If you want to lose weight that is the property you primarily need to look at. If you care about overall health then obviously there is a lot more to it than just calories. People somehow interpreted a calorie is just a calorie as a claim that all food is the same when its just saying that from a weight loss perspective, the energy component from any food source is the same -- there are no further claims about nutrition content.
And yet medical organizations backed government efforts to force it upon our society.
"Calories in calories out is 100% valid for weight loss" "A calorie is just a calorie, so much as color is color."
Yeah, and you can tell an obese person to cut off their legs to lose weight. Sure, you'll be factually accurate, but are you honestly talking about weight loss?
"If you care about overall health then obviously there is a lot more to it than just calories."
Is weight loss without health considerations really the subject you think people discuss when they talk about weight loss? Nobody talking about actual dieting and weight loss is talking about thermodynamics. We're talking about the complex interactions between food, exercise, mental health, and our individual bodies in order to reliably lose weight and be healthier.
the possibly dangerous part is recommending that particular part of the book in response to a query asking for how long one needs to fast to feel the effects.
but a tiger has evolved to be an apex predator, and not much else.
our predatory speciality is more about leverage than brute force, or scavenging rather than hunting. so i think the logic still applies that cognition can be improved in a way that is beneficial to modern humans. resourcefulness implying that resources are found / conjured when they appeared to be lacking?
Layman here, just popped into my mind.
"Essentially, fasting causes a switch in healthy cells from a proliferative state towards a maintenance and repair state. Malignant cells, in contrast, seem to be unable to enter this protective state because of oncoprotein activity, and therefore fail to adapt to nutrient scarce conditions. Instead, fasting deprives proliferating cancer cells of nutrients, growth and other factors, which renders them more sensitive to cancer therapy and increases cell death"
A book is nothing but a long, detailed, carefully-researched argument. Or, at least the book I'm recommending is that.
If there are words I can say to convince you to read the book, please tell me them.
I'm literally paying people to read the book.[0]
I would love suggestions on how to improve the average discourse on the topic. What would you suggest?
Could you read through the linked thread, tell me if there's anything there that I should bring over here?
[0]: https://josh.works/mike-clayville-can-have-a-huge-impact-on-...
Idk what brought you on your mission, but your pitches interrupt discussions.
I recently did a full check-up (I'm 48) and all my blood/urine values were spot on - before starting my fasting protocol some values mostly related to arteriosclerosis were slightly over the recommended values. Obviously, this doesn't say much or it's far from being a scientific proof: it's just an observation. There are good chances that for a lot of people fasting would just not help and make life misearable.
You might try reducing your fasts to just 24 or 36 hours on weekends.
Currently, I do intermittent fasting where I don't eat before noon or after 6pm, 7 days a week. It helps me to manage my weight, I feel consistently energetic (I work out most days, cardio and weights), my mind feels as clear as ever, and I have no trouble following the practice as a lifestyle.
I'd say that I don't feel quite that clarity of thought when meditating after fasting for 30 hours or so. But it strikes the right balance of achieving some benefits of fasting without feeling like a huge chore that I have to overcome.
- cancerous cells often break the mitochondria forcing cell into a secondary respiration mode
- they also trigger vascular growth but chaotically
- since the cell is in this alternative respiration, they don't need normal arteries to get energy so the chaotic arterial network they grow is not a problem
- IIRC this network also impedes chemotoxins to reach the cell as fast as normal cells
- if you starve your body from sugar, you'll hurt the normal cells (which are in full respiration mode) while the cancerous will keep their metabolysm
It was a bunch of things like this but when you take distance, you have a dysfunctional cell that somehow is setup to construct a near perfect bed of survival in his own destructive processes.. it's almost smart.
Also of note is tumor heterogenity. Not only are cancers different between cell origin and across different patients, cancer is not one uniform genetic entity even inside a single person.
Why? The cancer's ability to repair DNA mutations is crap, so different chunks of tumor can rapidly evolve different mutations.
You might be able to drug one portion of the tumor based on a fancy receptor/biomarker, but that tumor chunk will get outcompeted by a different cancer blob that doesn't express that.
I've read not too long ago that a tumor is actually mostly an outer layer of active cells, the inner is made up of dead tumors probably serving as nutrient (<= very blurry on this). yet another part of that strange anti-life living form named cancer.
Fasting is one of the things that a lot of LCHF practitioners eventually gravitate towards because once your metabolism is used to burning fat, you're not hungry all the time and eating becomes optional. I typically eat two meals a day but sometimes one is more than enough.
I have tried fasting here and there but getting better at it is one of my goals. My main difficulty right now is easy access to food (being stuck working from home most days) and the social pressure of being the only one in the house who has committed to LCHF.
One way I've gotten through this recently is to use a pre-packaged meal delivery service. I order 30 meals at a time for $175 and that lasts me a month or so eating 2 per meal, 4-5 days a week. If I'm hungry, my food options are what's in the freezer, or a bag of popcorn.
I've found one of my biggest motivators for fasting is actually the pride I get from discussing it with friends and family. I'm not a prideful person, but it feels freaking great to boast nonchalantly about not having eaten food in a few days. The results also speak for themself as well.
If you don't have a fasting tracker app, I recommend finding one you like and trying to get some others on board. If you're interested, I have a group from posts on my blog that people hop in and out of [0]. Anyone feel free to join and post updates and I'll keep an extra close eye on it for the next few days.
Check out The Complete Guide to Intermittent Fasting. The research he cites shows that the effect you describe occurs in caloric restriction diets, not fasting. Fasting increases HGH and maintains BMR.
Perhaps what you are describing is the early days of fasting when your body is becoming fat adapted and you feel a bit sluggish, but after a short period your energy levels return to normal (for me it was less than a few weeks, 5 years ago, and my wife just started fasting with me and she is adapted and back to full energy while fasting after two weeks).
Fasting enables us to not have to focus on calorie restrictions to see a reduction in body weight. However, if you only eat 500 calories a day, eventually you will run out of fat and your BMR will go down as you approach a lower BMI.
It's a very slow and gradual process, but it does happen. If you've got plenty of fat to burn, not a huge issue, but as you lose weight it can start to apply more.
Anecdotal evidence also suggests that people who stick with a very strict IF schedule tend to see slower results and bigger plateaus than those who change things up more often.
I agree with your anecdotal evidence. I do 36 hour fasts 2x per week, and otherwise do 20-22 hour fasts. Every now and then I do a longer, 48-72 hour fast. I am in awe of people that get to 5-10 day fasts and hope to work up to this over time, perhaps on a quarterly basis.
This is dangerous and please don't encourage others to do only water fast. Pure water fast is dangerous beyond 4 days or so.
You need to supplement minerals while on per-longed fast. Salt, magnesium and potassium are vital to regulatory processes in your body.
When your body uses up all reserves it will not be able to sustain those processes. It is serious business so please read up on the subject while trying anything longer than 3 days.
> feeling of dying and lying in bed shivering on a 5-7 day.
This is body telling you something is wrong, ignoring is outright stupid. Like ignoring that you are bleeding.
> I have fasted 100 lbs away Congratulations
"Starting in June 1965, Scottish man Angus Barbieri (1939 – 7 September 1990) fasted for 382 days. He lived on tea, coffee, soda water and vitamins, living at home in Tayport, Scotland, and frequently visiting Maryfield Hospital for medical evaluation. He lost 276 pounds (125 kg) and set a record for the length of a fast."
I’m about to give up on total fasts and have bone broth a few times a day for the minerals.
Keen to know if we have learned more in this space
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000394.htm
Magnesium and potasium main but not only function is to regulate heart beat. Lack of them might lead to arrhythmia and other complications.
Not sure about muscle loss.
If you supplement minerals and listen to you body response, then you can fast as long as you have fat stores in your body.
Its only dangerous if you don't know what you are doing or ignoring signals from your body. Lightheadedness is common thing people report or /r/fasting/ and almost always they don't take salt while fasting.
But I am not an expert, it feels like I have done more reading about fasting then actual fasting. So don't take advice from strangers (especially /r/fasting or worse dryfasting nutcases).
Your brain runs on carbs. The easiest source of carbs is carb rich food. This is why hangry people seem to want nothing but cookies & candy IMO. But your body can only hold a limited amount of free carbs at any time. Meanwhile, your liver can convert fat to carbs to feed your brain, and your body can hold a virtually unlimited amount of fat. This pathway is more difficult, so you have to train your body to use it.
So I don't think it makes you smarter or more energetic. But it does make you more stable & help avoid the crash.
On top of this, once you use up all your glycogen, your body enters a period of autophagy which causes disfunctioning cells and protein fragments to become broken down and reused. This causes your body to function more efficiently, including your brain.
I wonder if, if you are not a big eater, then the difference might be less than if you tended to be full of food, digesting away all day and night. Similarly, if there's not a lot of fat on you maybe, rather than burning fat with an energy boost, you end up burning muscle and feel tired?
I think I also just become more irritable if it's been too long since the last time I ate. It definitely doesn't seem to improve mental acuity for me, and any kind of physical activity is just going to feel worse. I've never tried any kind of a formal fast, though, so I don't know if there's something to planned schedules that makes it different.
I can kind of see how I might, under some circumstances, enter some kind of a state of quicker thinking after fasting, but I think it would be something similar to sleep deprivation, where you get perhaps a bit "hyper". That's not really a state I necessarily strive for either.
I've also never been overweight, and have always had more trouble gaining weight than getting rid of it. I wonder if that has something to do with it. I suppose the metabolism might be different if you've got some fat stores vs. if you're rather low-fat.
I can understand how fasting could e.g. have differential effects on cancer cells and thus be useful in specific circumstances. I also understand that people have rather different reactions, so I don't doubt that some people achieve some kind of a state that feels good or useful by fasting. But I don't really understand the hype, or calling it a panacea.
Each time I hit that point I get the clarity and energy, and remember that it happens each time. Pretty interesting. So much energy I can't sleep and end up eating when I can't sleep which breaks the fast.
I am only 5kgs over weight at this point if that is relevant for anyone.
Which actually brings me to another point; the brain does not run exclusively on carbs (glucose) - it absolutely has the ability to (and does) functions well on ketones. This is why ketogenic diets can work for many people.
But yes, there's lots of bio-chemical mechanisms that get kicked off when you're fasting for an extended period, so it could be something else that's unique to the people who experience the euphoria.
I am not sure if you've come across this concept, but "Metabolic Flexibility" seems to be trying to explain some of the "after burner" affects of switching around my dieting habits. Where I am no longer exercising strict caloric restrictions, or fasting on a regimen, but I am still observing some of the benefits of when I switched over. (Less bloating, more energetic even after a large meal, less voracious appetite on normal days).
Its a state where your body and mind need to be the sharpest in order to catch food. Or else due to lack of fuel you will enter actual starvation (no fat reserves).
When you have reduced calories intake ~~500kcal a day you are signaling to your body that you can find/catch food but there is not a lot of it. Your metabolism will slow down in order to adjust to reduce calories. You loose muscle mass much faster than when not eating at all.
I have done multiple >3 days fasts and I havent experienced this sharpness feeling though. It seems some people do and some don't.
Also worth mentioning keto is natural diet of Eskimo people, they survived generations eating seal's meat and fat. So keto is not some crazy nutjob diet invention of 21st cent.