Intermittent fasting is known to have many health benefits, from weight loss to improved heart health and better brain function. Let’s dive deeper into how fasting achieves these health benefits.
Although intermittent fasting may seem like a recent nutritional trend, its history dates back to thousands of years ago.
Our caveman ancestors fed themselves when they could find food and remained hungry for long periods when their hunt was unsuccessful. They survived with this method, which we now call “intermittent fasting” for thousands of years.
By not eating for a specific period of each day or week, you can experience many health benefits from fasting.
Here are the top 6 health benefits of intermittent fasting based on recent scientific studies on nutrition and health:
Index
1) Controls blood sugar
Several researchers have found that those who follow an intermittent fasting plan for a period have better blood sugar control.
If you stay hungry for a specific period, your level of insulin – the hormone that decreases the level of sugar in your blood – drops. Your digestion is inactive, so there’s no need to secrete insulin. The insulin-glucose fluctuation stops. (1)
In the long term, this helps to reduce insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is an unhealthy condition where your body doesn’t respond well to insulin and can’t easily take up glucose from your blood. Fasting improves that by keeping your blood sugar steady.
Type 2 diabetics and people at risk of diabetes also benefit from intermittent fasting.
- They lose excess weight.
- Their insulin sensitivity improves, leading to lower insulin requirements.
- Their fasting blood glucose levels normalize.
- Syndromes that are based on blood glucose imbalances can begin to heal as a bonus (e.g. polycystic ovary syndrome in females)
Bear in mind that fasting may impact blood sugar levels differently for men and women. Consult a medical professional first.
2) Supports weight loss
No wonder so many doctors and dietitians are turning to intermittent fasting as a weight loss method for their patients nowadays.
Research shows that managing the times you eat and fast according to your circadian rhythms has a positive impact on weight loss. (2)
During the periods when you stay hungry, your body enters the catabolic (breakdown) phase, which means your body starts to use stored nutrients for energy. Glucose is your body’s first choice. When the body runs out of glucose, it starts to consume glycogen (the stored form of glucose) to keep its energy at normal levels.
After around 12 hours of fasting, your body enters the long-awaited fat burning phase, because by now you have also run out of your glycogen stores. Your body fat becomes the main fuel for your body. This whole breakdown phase is essentially how you start to lose excess body weight and fat. If you carry on fasting, your body enters the ketosis stage where you burn more stored fat.
You can simply follow a 14/10 or 16/8 plan if you’d like to burn some fat. For an extended fat-burn effect, 18/6 or 20/4 plan (warrior diet) plans are recommended.
Moreover, your insulin level goes down as you fast, you crave less sugary food and feel full for a longer period. The production of leptin (the satiety hormone) increases, whereas the hunger hormone, ghrelin decreases. You begin to feel fuller with smaller portions.
Here’s a detailed 7-day intermittent fasting meal plan to set an example for you.
3) Reduces inflammation
Inflammation is a normal immune process of your body that it uses to fight infections. What’s bad about it is that, if the inflammation in the body becomes chronic, it can have serious effects on your health.
According to recent scientific studies, we know that caloric restriction reduces inflammation (3) and some research shows that intermittent fasting may be beneficial for reversing chronic inflammatory conditions (4) such as:
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Heart disease
- Cancer
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Asthma
- Multiple sclerosis
- Stroke
- Inflammatory bowel syndrome
Keep in mind that not all cancer types and stages are suitable to follow an intermittent fasting plan. In fact, all of the conditions above are very serious and need medical consultancy beforehand.
4) Improves heart health
In recent years, human nutritional habits have deteriorated, with people eating more junk food and the number of obese people increasing, and yet more and more of us have sedentary lifestyles. Of course, this has to have a health consequence: increased rates of heart disease.
Given that heart disease has the highest mortality rate globally of any disease, it is very important to seek ways to cure it, and to reduce its risks. The simplest way you can help yourself is to switch your diet to a healthier one and increase your activity level by doing cardio exercises.
Research shows that incorporating fasting into your daily routine may protect cardiovascular health by raising your HDL (good cholesterol) level. It can be a great tool for the prevention, management, and treatment of cardiovascular disorders. (5)
It is also an important factor that intermittent fasting reduces excess weight and fat in the waist area, which creates a risk for heart health.
5) Delays aging
What would you think if we said that the way to keep looking young involved staying hungry for a certain period?
Digestion is a process that involves a lot of effort by your body. If you constantly keep eating things throughout the day and night, your digestive system has to work continuously and your body never gets a break to deal with other tasks.
When you fast, your body doesn’t have to deal with digestion and it is finally able to focus on detoxing the old cells and producing new ones.
During the fasted state, your body can start the cellular repair process, which is also called “autophagy” (a Greek word for “eating itself”). The body destroys old and diseased cells and produces young and healthy ones. This is how skin rejuvenation begins, too.
The detox process also strengthens the immune system against diseases by increasing the number of immune cells. There is a lot of research showing that fasting can help with the cellular repair process in cancer and other illnesses.
Several studies conducted on mice and other animals show that time-restricted feeding has promising results for potentially extending lifespans, too. (6)
While more research is needed on this topic, the results are exciting for the future of longevity studies.
6) Improves brain health
Some people claim that intermittent fasting can even boost brain function, as well as prevent neurodegenerative disorders.
But how can staying hungry for a certain period achieve this? Science has the answer: reducing inflammation, something fasting is very successful at doing, is an important factor in this regard.
For instance, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases are both largely due to high levels of inflammation. Extended periods of fasting activate the autophagy process and relieve inflammation.
Some research also shows that intermittent fasting supports memory (7), helps increase the production of nerve cells and combats the symptoms of brain fog.
These positive effects may be due to the fact that, while you fast, toxic substances in the blood are reduced and the lymphatic system is cleaned, which allows you to think more clearly. The body doesn’t use its energy resources to digest, but instead to clean the old components in the body, so the brain has more energy to function properly.
To sum up
These benefits of intermittent fasting won’t happen in just a few days after you start fasting. In fact, it’s normal to have minor side effects like headaches at first.
Bear in mind that this is a normal process and once your body starts to clean itself of toxins, you’ll gradually experience the benefits of fasting. It takes time for your body to adapt to a new nutrition system, but in a few weeks you’ll most likely see changes in your appetite control, and the rest will come later.
If you would like to learn the best suitable fasting plan for you, along with useful articles and tips, you can get Kompanion.
