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Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

news.usc.edu

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Re: Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

#131

Post by stupidcar »

aviv wrote: post #102
marchelzo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry- but you mean that you didn't eat anything at all for 23 days? And you felt energized?

Correct. I did not consume anything but water for those 23 days. And yes, past day four I felt more energized than at any time in the last 10 years or so. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but I guess it's one of those things you have to try to feel for yourself :) Even the people around me that knew I was fasting were surprised to see the progression and how much more energetic I seemed. Anecdotally, I did feel at…

It's not really that counter-intuitive. Presuming humans evolved to cope in situations where food was sometimes very scarce, and had to be acquired through hunting and gathering, likely in competition with other individuals and groups, then being listless and incapable for months as our body's stores of fat and muscle drained away would not be helpful. Far better for the body to expend its store in a few weeks of energetic activity spent searching for replacement food supplies.

I've heard it said that what most people in the developed world describe as "hunger" is really just appetite. A different phenomenon, and an uncomfortable one, but separate from true hunger, which tends to set in after a few weeks, and is more like a psychological impulse to acquire food by any possible means, including violence.

Re: Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

#132

Post by bitL »

aviv wrote: post #84
rlucas wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got to get past about 36 hours before your body / brain stop acting so "berserk." After that, you stop being hungry and you can look at food with relative equanimity.

I agree. Earlier this year I fasted for 23 days (consuming only water) and the hunger and desire to eat went away after the third or forth day. The need to eat was replaced by a burst of energy that lasted for the remainder of the fast and several weeks after.

Add a bit of salt/minerals to your water or you risk lack of electrolytes, but you probably know.

I feel a bit dizzy at around 20 hour mark, past this I feel absolutely fine, can do interval training like always and have no hunger at all. On 3rd day I can start noticing some physical limitations, like when I tested how many hills can I climb on a MTB until I hit the wall hard (shaking muscles, mild spasms etc.), and the time I can spend doing athletic level of activity decreases every day (like 6 hours in the beginning to 1 hour after two weeks).

Re: Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

#133

Post by thomasrossi »

__z wrote: post #15
marvel_boy wrote: post #6

It worked (supposedly) in mice, not in humans. The title is misleading.

Did you read the whole thing? "In a pilot human trial, three cycles of a similar diet given to 19 subjects once a month for five days decreased risk factors and biomarkers for aging, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer with no major adverse side effects, according to Longo."

You don't eat, so you don't stuff your cardiovascular system with fat, nothing new there (and if your problem is not genetic diabetes, then you are good to go against diabetes that way too). Also for the aging, digestion is a pretty intensive biochemical procedure, I am sure your tissues may like some rest from time to time, nothing new there either.

What is not mentioned is that other biochemical pathways are triggered by starving, for instance, you digest your own muscular tissues. This may or may not be what you want. So basically you are avoiding some biochemical machinery just to trigger another.. balacing it looks sort of difficult and for sure picking 5 days in a month looks pretty random, I will wait the try different timings at least;P

Re: Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

#135

Post by spectrum1234 »

Stuff like this way more obvious if you start to think about it. Is putting your body in a safe bubble to live optimal? Does nurture always beat nature? Of course not. Some amount of stress and physical challenge MUST be optimal (defined as reduce aging). What USC just did here is pick a solid guess in the range of fairly optimal.

For the fasting parameter, (of many to choose from that cause stress or physical challenge) again with heuristics, we can first drill down to a sub-parameter of "being fairly hungry". Given the previous logic, this variable must be a component of slowing aging.

Now if you had to guess from 1 day to 50 days or even 250 days, what would you guess is the optimal time of "being fairly hungry" to reduce aging? Mostly people would probably guess 2-10 days using the heuristics of "one day is just too little to have an effect" and "15+ days just cant be safe for you body."

I'm surprised I hadn't heard about a study like this before. What I am not surprised by is that the optimal range is right in the middle of the optimal range from simple heuristics.

The next heuristic you can tack on is timing between fasts. Using the same logic you will get very close to the timing between fasts USC is suggests.

Re: Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

#136

Post by bmajz »

Avshalom wrote: post #125
bmajz wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice to make your e-acquaintance. Counter-example: Fasted the last couple of years in a -20% calorie deficit. Did nap during the day, but then worked out right before iftar (dinner). It's not an uncommon regimen. Just like anything else with a n of 500M (+/- 200M depending on number of adults and sick/elderly), it's hard to make a generalization. Personally though, it went fine in terms of productivity and energy. Tr…

Hi! I say that crack about ramadan with all the affection in the world, I really do. I'm from a long line of catholics who give up sobriety for lent. It is my favorite human thing in the world that we can turn a fast holy month into a feast holiday. Though I am a bit more serious about the the gorging/extra sleep probably negating the benefits. I don't have the studies on hand but I think that most of the fasting stu…

Yeah, I think it's likely true in many affluent parts of the Muslim world that Ramadan, shall we say, enhances existing trends towards obesity. The irony is indeed morbidly amusing.

Re: Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

#137

Post by pbreit »

reasonattlm wrote: post #27

There is much more background info on Longo and his work on intermittent fasting if you go digging. More interesting than this particular piece, which is very short on context and science relating to the study of intermittent fasting, calorie restriction as adjuvant cancer therapy, immune regeneration via fasting, etc. http://gero.usc.edu/faculty/longo/ http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-06/uosc-fts06021...…

Do any of these reveal the diet basics? I wonder if a Soylent-like product could deliver?

Re: Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

#138

Post by tptacek »

Rainymood wrote: post #38

I currently intermittent fast by skipping breakfast + lunch, partially because I'm lazy, partially because it allows me to easily eat 'all my calories' in the end of the day. I really like this as it provides a 'buffer' for unexpected food, such as random cake, or random lunches with colleagues etc. Has anyone here actually ever TRIED fasting a full 24h day? I have. I HATED it. Well, the fasting itself wasn't that ba…

Yes. For the last year, I've been eating 1-2 meals a day in a 2PM-8PM window, which is something I started doing after accidentally fasting 24+ hours a couple times and realizing that it wasn't that big a deal. I can get a full 24 hour fast simply by holding off until 8PM for dinner, which I do sometimes too.

I definitely don't get berzerk-mode hungry after 24 hours.

Re: Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

#139

Post by cag_ii »

chaz72 wrote: post #36
alecco wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, this gets me extremely suspicious until there's independent verification.

If it can't be independently verified, it can't be called science, no matter how promising the study is when they run it.

Why do you think it can't be independently verified? There is a link elsewhere in this thread to the related patent application which I would think contains enough info to verify.

Re: Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

#140

Post by greensoap »

teach wrote: post #119
Rainymood wrote: post #38

I currently intermittent fast by skipping breakfast + lunch, partially because I'm lazy, partially because it allows me to easily eat 'all my calories' in the end of the day. I really like this as it provides a 'buffer' for unexpected food, such as random cake, or random lunches with colleagues etc. Has anyone here actually ever TRIED fasting a full 24h day? I have. I HATED it. Well, the fasting itself wasn't that ba…

Just for the record, skipping breakfast + lunch has nothing whatsoever to do with fasting. It's not even remotely similar in terms of how your body reacts to it. And as others have commented yes there are many of us who have fasted for days at a time for religious reasons.

He said intermittent fasting. IF is basically what he described. 16 hours of no eating with an 8 hour window where you eat. I think some people take it farther--20 hours of fasting (water permitted) followed by caloric intake for four hours.
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