intermittent fasting

Recently a very insightful article posted at Science – A Time to Fast, written by a team from the Translational Gerontology Branch, National Institute on Aging at the NIH in Baltimore. [Science  16 Nov 2018:Vol. 362, Issue 6416, pp. 770-775]

If you have any interest whatsoever in the concept of fasting, even if doing something as ridiculously simple as compressing your eating window during a given day, take a few minutes to read through this article at your leisure.

A section of their of opening comments from the article, emphasis mine –

…Besides socioeconomic status, energy, environmental quality, and genetics are the most powerful determinants of health and longevity. Although environmental quality and genetics are not under our direct control, energy intake is. The consumption of food provides energy and nutrients necessary to sustain life and allows growth, repair, and reproduction. Proper nutrition can influence health and survival and delay or, in some cases, prevent the onset and progression of chronic diseases. However, both hypo- and hypernutrition have the potential to increase the risk of chronic disease and premature death. Furthermore, manipulation of a nutritionally balanced diet, whether by altering caloric intake or meal timing, can lead to a delay of the onset and progression of diseases and to a healthier and longer life in most organisms (2–4). In general, both prolonged reduction in daily caloric intake and periodic fasting cycles have the power to delay the onset of disease and increase longevity. Data from experimental studies in short-lived species and emerging clinical and epidemiological observations indicate that dietary interventions are valuable strategies that can be applied to promote healthy aging. In model organisms, caloric restriction (CR) provides beneficial effects on health and survival, and there is an extensive literature that provides insights into its molecular mechanisms of action (4)…

The authors go on to review key aspects of, and a bit of the history behind, simple caloric restriction, time-restricted feeding (what many of us in the ancestral/Primal worlds identify as intermittent fasting), intermittent fasting and periodic fasting, which the authors define as an eating pattern in which no or few calories are consumed for periods of time that range from one to several days, and what they labeled as fasting-mimicking diets.

There are several excellent diagrams, emphasizing key points from the article, and offering comparisons of the different approaches.

For those who wish to dig a little deeper in the subject of caloric restriction and different approaches to fasting, something all of us have the potential to benefit significantly from, the article is well referenced.

On a personal note, we’ve been, for the most part effortlessly, practicing what the authors term time-restricted feeding for more than two years now. In the ancestral / Primal worlds, this approach is often labelled as using a compressed eating window or intermittent fasting, consuming the predominance of the day’s nutrition in a six to eight hour window.

As we became more Primally-aligned in our own nutrition, and consciously applying the WHEN principle (eat When Hunger Ensues Naturally), eating in a compressed eating window evolved quite naturally, and provided a host of benefits, including better overall energy and endurance, improved mental clarity and cognitive function, improved sleep, intentional/desired weight loss, and more. I personally plan on giving a 5:2 fasting routine a trial run this upcoming first quarter of 2019.

If you’ve tested some form of fasting in your own routine, it’s time to dig a little deeper and give one (or more) of the approaches a spin.