﻿What are the benefits of IF?

The benefits of fasting include, bur are not limited to —

Autophagy — Autophagy is for me, the main reason for doing IF. Autophagy is the body’s natural process of recycling old and damaged cells. Basically what happens is that cells get eaten up by newer stronger cells as a result of the body entering in a “preservation or survival mode” due to a prolonged fast. There are several studies that show that autophagy initiates in humans after 18 or 20 hours of continuous fasting — however, there are higher benefits between the 48-72 hour mark (autophagy can only happen if glycogen stores in the liver are very low, glycogen stores will be low or depleted after fasting for 18+ hours or less if physical exercise is involved). Please keep in mind that fasting 16+ hours will definitely get this process started, however, prolonged fasting periods equals more benefit.

Fat loss — Dramatic fat loss while maintaining muscle. (Mattson, 2017) IF promotes the increase of muscle tone, density and some other general things like improving vascular function which improves how the skin, nails and hair look. There are also several physiological changes going on while fasting; fasting releases a group of hormones called catecholamines (adrenaline, norepinephrine, etc.) that allows the body to start tapping on the fat store reserves for energy, while at the same time, some other hormone functions prevent the body from burning or using muscle. So using all the fat reserves without loosing muscles is a huge benefit.

Inflammation — IF has been shown to reduce inflammation. (Lavin, 2011) Excessive inflammation is a precursor of chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s, obesity diabetes, dementia and many more. IF promotes usage of fat fuels (ketones) — which is proved to block part of the immune system responsible for inflammatory disorders like Alzheimer’s (Pinto, 2018) (Youm, 2015). Below, the references for this last statement, which I recommend reading as they’re not as dense as many other medical academic papers.

Ketones — You’ve probably heard about ketones before, as ketogenic diets are all over the place. During the fasting period, the body uses most of its sugar stores and will then turn to fat as fuel; when the body breaks down fats to turn into energy, it creates ketones to be used as brain fuel.

BDNF — Fasting boosts production of a protein called BNDF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) which directly relates to neural plasticity which will make the brain more resilient adaptable to change and therefore to stress. (Mattson, 2005) (Mattson, 2003)

Human Growth Hormone — Fasting boosts HGH. The benefits of high HGH levels within the body have enormous anti-aging benefits as well as improved cognition and an increase in neurogenesis. (Dykens, 2017) (Horne, 2018)

Insulin Sensitivity— Insulin resistance is a phenomenon on which the body doesn’t regulate insulin properly, this being the main driving factor that leads to type 2 diabetes. Fasting has been shown to promote insulin sensitivity. When fasting, there’s really no food to digest and the body uses up most of it’s sugar stores, giving the body the opportunity to take a break on that regard while at the same time allowing insulin levels to drop and with time, enabling the body to re-sensitize to insulin once more.