The Importance of Fasting: What’s New?

If the potential health-promoting effects of less frequent eating are considered sufficient for implementation of this dietary strategy, is consuming one daily meal equivalent to the consumption of two daily meals? In this case, the answer is not merely “less is better”: reducing food intake to only one meal per day may worsen the positive effect of lower meal frequency [ 87 88 ]. Therefore, the intake of two (or three) meals per day is perhaps the best option, and the difference between two or three could depend on the length of the daily fasting period they produce.

Much research in recent years suggests a positive health effect of a wide temporal fasting window during the day, i.e., limiting daily food intake to a ~6–8 h time window seems to induce, in humans, many health benefits compared to the normal daily meal distribution (i.e.,three to five meals, spread from breakfast to late dinner), even in isocaloric conditions [ 89 ]. It is clear that fasting, in general, exerts many positive effects on health [ 90 ], with some features in common with the caloric restriction (CR) approach (protects against diabetes, cancers, heart disease, and neurodegeneration; reduces obesity, hypertension, asthma, and rheumatoid arthritis).

During a typical CR protocol, the daily energy intake is chronically reduced by 20–40%, but meal frequency is maintained. It is well known that CR is a viable tool for health improvement: both animal studies [ 91 ] and human research [ 92 93 ] showed that this approach could improve many health-related variables.

However, we have to consider the experimental setting of the ab libitum diet and the CR condition to which it is compared in animal experiments. Often, in animal models, the CR condition influences fasting duration. In these experiments, animals in the ad lib diet have unrestricted access to food, not only in quantity but also in frequency, whilst the CR group can only eat within a specific window, usually determined by the researcher’s schedule. In these settings, meals are often spaced out, creating prolonged fasting windows that could influence the outcomes [ 94 ]. This is an important issue because fasting is a different approach than traditional CR. We consider fasting as an abstention from food and caloric beverages for a specific interval of time, usually longer than the normal 8 h of sleep. Alternatively, starvation refers to extreme forms of fasting, which result in nutrient deficiencies and other chronic health problems related to the absence of appropriate nutrient intake. Starvation is, actually, a dysregulated condition that leads to a pathological loss of homeostasis related to the reduction in fundamental organ and tissues performance [ 95 ]. When considering the different types of fasting programs, we can divide them into two main categories: long-term fasting (LTF) that induces ketosis, and short-term fasting (STF) that does not lead to ketosis. LTF, i.e., fasting with accompanying ketosis, is performed for approximately three days or more. After this period, glucose reserves become depleted and glycogen stores are no longer sufficient to either aid in normal fat oxidation (via oxaloacetate in the Krebs cycle) or to supply energy to the brain and central nervous system (CNS) [ 96 ]. Thus, an alternative energy source is needed to maintain the metabolism of the brain. This energy is supplied by the ketone bodies (KBs) acetoacetate (AcAc), 3-hydroxybutyrate (3HB), and acetone, which are generated from acetyl-CoA via a process called ketogenesis, which occurs mainly in the mitochondrial matrix of hepatocytes [ 96 97 ]. Ketosis exerts many positive effects on metabolism and numerous cellular pathways, such as increasing stress resistance, lipolysis, mitochondria efficiency, and autophagy (e.g., one of the ketone bodies, b-hydroxybutyrate (D-bHB), is a natural inhibitor of class I and IIa histone deacetylases that repress transcription of the FOXO3a -forkhead box O3 - gene). Moreover, ketone body metabolism reduces the ROS (reactive oxygen species) toxicity through the NADPH system [ 98 ]. However, in the context of meal timing and frequency, we want to emphasize the role of STF, which utilizes fasts of insufficient duration to induce ketosis unless used in conjunction with a ketogenic diet. There are several types of STF programs [ 99 ]: intermittent fasting (IF) performed as alternate day fasting (ADF) or whole-day fasting for 1–2 days per week, periodic fasting (PF) lasting three or more days every 2–3 weeks, and TRF (Time restricted feeding) whichallows subjects to consume ad libitum energy intake within a defined window of time (from 3–4 h to 10–12 h) [ 100 101 ], resulting in a fasting window of 12–21 h per day. For our purposes, we will discuss the TRF because if the number of meals is reduced to two (i.e., breakfast and lunch), and the last meal is consumed between 14:00 h and 16:00 h, this leads to a 12 to 16 h of fasting per 24-h period. It is also worth noting that a substantial amount of research has been conducted during the month-long period of Ramadan fasting observed by practicing Muslims [ 102 ]. Ramadan fasting can be considered a form of TRF since food intake is disallowed when it is light outside. However, some notable factors make it difficult to appropriately compare Ramadan fasting to other forms of TRF: the light/dark cycle of eating and fasting is reversed as compared to natural circadian rhythms, the length of fasting window varies based on geographical location and year (Ramadan is set according to the lunar calendar), and different implementations of Ramadan fasting exist (i.e., some eat before the sun rises and after the sun sets, while others only eat after the sun sets). Finally, nearly all studies are observational and last only 4 weeks since this is the duration of Ramadan fasting.

“it is possible to speculate that dysregulation of autophagy could be associated with hypertension, obesity, diabetes mellitus, and end organ damage” [ Despite the fact that the duration of fasting during Ramadan (about 16 h) would not typically result in ketosis, it is sufficient to stimulate many of the pathway linked to long term fasting approach, e.g., autophagy [ 103 ]. Autophagy, an intracellular process that mediates protein degradation, organelle turnover, and recycling of cytoplasmic components, is a fundamental process to combat cellular stress and preserve normal cell function. In heart and blood vessels, specifically, autophagy plays a fundamental role not only during cardiac embryonic development but also for a normal cardiovascular function. It has been suggested that many of peptides and hormones involved in cardiovascular system physiology are also regulated by autophagy, thus 104 ]. As fasting stimulates autophagy, it is likely that these two factors are both related to the demonstrated cardioprotective effect. Indeed, Godar et al. 2015 [ 105 ] demonstrated that ADF protects mice from in-vivo ischemia-reperfusion injury, but only in wild-type animals. In mice with impaired autophagy (heterozygous null for Lamp2 coding for lysosomal-associated membrane protein 2), there was not a protective effect, but rather a worsening effect. Another study performed on rats showed that ADF has a cardioprotective effect reducing cerebral infarct size and infarct expansion in a rat model of myocardial infarction (MI) [ 106 ].

Fasting affects substrate metabolism, the cardiovascular system and inflammation, as well as exerting potentially powerful effects on circadian rhythms.Increasing the fasting window stimulates fat metabolism and the metabolic switch between glucose oxidation and fat oxidation. Indeed, at between 12 and 36 h of fasting there is an increase of TG (triacylglycerol) lipolysis highlighted by the increase of plasma FFA and glycerol [ 107 ]. The metabolic switch typically occurs in the third phase of fasting when glycogen stores in hepatocytes are depleted and the accelerated adipose tissue lipolysis produces an increase in plasma fatty acids and glycerol (21). The fasting period associated with IF and TRF seems to have various positive effects on the cardiovascular system as well: they enhance parasympathetic activity (mediated by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine) in the autonomic neurons that innervate the heart and arteries, resulting in a reduced heart rate and blood pressure [ 90 108 ]. Furthermore, TRF could also act on inflammation levels. It is well known that inflammation is related to CHD and atherosclerosis. We demonstrated in humans [ 100 ] that an isocaloric TRF approach may reduce many markers of inflammation such as tumour necrosis factor a, interleukin 6, and interleukin 1b, and, at the same time, may increase adiponectin (an anti-inflammatory cytokine). As demonstrated for late eating, fasting also seems to be involved in circadian rhythm regulation or dysregulation. It has been demonstrated that TRF could protect mice against obesity, hyperinsulinemia, hepatic steatosis, and inflammation when fed with a high-fat diet (HFD). The ad libitum HFD rodents also showed altered circadian rhythmicity compared to the TRF rodents. Moreover, TRF improved CREB (cAMP response element-binding protein), mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin), and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) pathway function and oscillations of the circadian clock, as well as improving motor coordination [ 109 ]. These results could be explained through the considerable crosstalk and the tight interaction between the cellular clocks and the signalling induced by fed/fasted state. For example, we know that fasting, similar to a ketogenic diet, induces the phosphorylation of AMPK, a fundamental actor in mitochondrial biogenesis and function. On the other hand, the fed state stimulates the mechanistic target of rapamycin pathway (mTOR), which promotes anabolic processes during increased energy availability, which could interfere with AMPK pathway. This connection supports the tight relationship between fed/fast state and molecular pathways.