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Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)

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Re: Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)

#151
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

60 days as I understood - first 30 days just water and then the next 30 days water with electrolytes

This guy should be dead, his body should have digested himself. How can someone not eat anything by his own will for more than a few days ? (5-7 max) you should pass out. Also in the case that were true, let me be clear: No food intake for multiple days is extremely dangerous for your health, it will upregulate autophagy, apoptosis and will break your mitochondria bioenegetics which will explode your oxidative stress…

It sounds like you never tried?

I watched my dad do 30-60 days every few years growing up. He always said how clear it made him mentally and the benefits to his health also was visible (until today he mountain-bikes across South East Asia during winter and he is in his late 70ies).

Longest I did was 40 days. Started out with 10 days a few years earlier which broke my misconceptions about if I would be able to do it. Especially the 40 days has been a healing journey for me both physically and mentally. It also gave me massive confidence about my body and taught me more about my limits than what decades of running did. I wouldn't do this long again because I lack the reserves today. But 10-20 days every few years is no issue.

Re: Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)

#152
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but that's kind if anecdotal. You're extending the case of one woman age (x) to all women age (x). Yes, you say "maybe she had other compounding factors" which is equivalent to saying her case was idiosyncratic. In which case, why try to generalise it at all then? When I look around the city, I see a lot of underweight women of all ages, including childbearing age — whatever the hell we're defining that as.* Ma…

>Sorry but that's kind if anecdotal. He said they later learned it's known that women react to fasting differently and can have negative side effects, which we also discovered from our doctor when trying to get pregnant - so don't really see anything anecdotal there.

It's not anecdotal because your anecdote matched the parent's anecdote. Okay. Scientific method looking robust in this field.

My point is that any nutritional thing is anecdotal because people don't neatly slot into a category when it comes to nutrition.

Re: Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)

#153
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually my understanding of it as well, though I kind of arrived at the conclusion on my own pulling from various sources and experience. People think about fat as if they have access to it all, but it's a surface area per unit time problem. Like all the chemistry in life, on some level, it's diffusion limited. What you should be thinking about while fasting is not letting your basal rate/time + exercise exp…

The missing part in your description, to the best of my understanding, is fat to ketone conversion - you don’t use the fat directly, the process takes time, so ketones have to already be circulating when you need them. It can also explain why ketogenic diets work for many people - if you exercise every few days, your body will maintain sufficient blood ketone level for your exercise days, but unlike glucose, ketones…

I think, to the best of my understanding, most of what you've said is correct. This is also why I always use blood ketone meters rather than urine strips.

Apologies for not including that, I guess I just assumed it was common knowledge? Mea culpa.

Re: Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy should be dead, his body should have digested himself. How can someone not eat anything by his own will for more than a few days ? (5-7 max) you should pass out. Also in the case that were true, let me be clear: No food intake for multiple days is extremely dangerous for your health, it will upregulate autophagy, apoptosis and will break your mitochondria bioenegetics which will explode your oxidative stress…

It sounds like you never tried? I watched my dad do 30-60 days every few years growing up. He always said how clear it made him mentally and the benefits to his health also was visible (until today he mountain-bikes across South East Asia during winter and he is in his late 70ies). Longest I did was 40 days. Started out with 10 days a few years earlier which broke my misconceptions about if I would be able to do it.…

I'm really surprised at the number of people in this comemnt thread who think going a week without food will kill you. I don't even think it will harm any healthy adult in any way, much less kill them.

Re: Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)

#155
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if starting something like a 7-day fast without medical supervision is a good idea, and I'm also not sure if any medical professional would allow you to do that, just thinking out loud. Don't you think it's too dangerous to name it essential life experience and recommend it to random people on the internet? I'm really asking, I'm not knowledgeable about this at all, and my questions stem from pure gut fe…

I also question if 7 days is safe for most. I don't recall exactly when and a quick search now yields a lot of random gimmicky fasting product sales sites with blog posts written to generate traffic that aren't scientific enough, but I do recall that there is a point (after 72 hours?) where your body starts breaking down muscle and that prolonged fasting is dangerous as your organs get hit next? Perhaps someone here…

Thought experiment...

Humans have weathered long durations of food insecurity for much of their existence. If the default metabolic solution to fasting was harvesting energy from skeletal muscle and smooth muscle... well that strategy wouldn't work for very long, would it? The lowest hanging fruit is muscle/liver glycogen, and fat mass after that.

Breaking down proteins (gluconeogenesis) is a metabolically expensive process, requiring large energy input for low energy output. The body is wholly invested in protecting these vital organs. Skeletal muscle has a reputation for being fickle, subject to change based on stimulus and energy demands, but those adjustments are most significant and relevant to those who are invested in maximizing lean mass (athletes, bodybuilders, statistical outliers).

Fasting is relatively protein-sparing, all things considered. The observations of apparent muscle loss can be attributed to loss of muscle turgidity - a reduction in glycogen, intracellular fluid, and electrolytes. The difference between fed and fasted states, both visual and internal perceptions, are quite extreme.

Are extended fasts ideal, or even generally recommended, for someone with the singular goal of building muscle? Absolutely not. But it is a flexible tool when goals shift towards catabolic outcomes (losing weight). Furthermore, the downstream benefits of fasting can translate to improvements in insulin sensitivity, nutrient partitioning, muscle-building, and body composition... which are relevant to anabolic outcomes.

Re: Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)

#156

I am not sure exactly what some people call fasting but I am bewildered by statements "I did 60 days of fasting/it is safe". Here one can read about the "safety" of ca 60 days hunger strikes. See the section: "People who died on hunger strike" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike The oldest one died at age 29. Bonus: "Other participants in the hunger strike". Column: Reason for ending the strike One…

There are a number of differences here that should be noted. Firstly, as you keenly note, we need to define terms like fasting. The kind of fasting people are doing for extended periods always includes water, but more than that, for an extended fast, it also includes electrolytes, and sometimes other nutrients. Secondly, 60 days is a very long fast. While people are going to point out cases of people fasting for a ye…

Last but not least: ulcers are exacerbated by fasting.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23432987/

Re: Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)

#157
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy should be dead, his body should have digested himself. How can someone not eat anything by his own will for more than a few days ? (5-7 max) you should pass out. Also in the case that were true, let me be clear: No food intake for multiple days is extremely dangerous for your health, it will upregulate autophagy, apoptosis and will break your mitochondria bioenegetics which will explode your oxidative stress…

That's not how it works at all. Not drinking water will damage/kill you real fast, not eating food on the other hand is pretty safe for most people. The longest fast was ~380 days [0] If you have some fat (75% of westerners are heavily overweight or obese) you can easily fast on water only for weeks, of course you're not going to be able to exercise heavily every day or run a marathon. But if you're an overweight off…

[deleted]

Re: Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

18days here and would carried on but had to break it for other reasons. Glutathione possibly needs to be included as this will get low and Choline or Carnitine to remove the brain fog that occurred. Averaged 18kg weight loss over the 18days, never felt so good in my life, like being a teenage male ramped up on Testosterone again, amazingly easy to fall asleep, excellent quality of sleep, vivid dreams which are recall…

Most supermarkets do sell demiwater (distilled/deionised), which is great for chemistry or cleaning of electrical components, as well as having a standard base (with mineral packets) for brewing coffee or beer. I would definitely not drink it, especially not without heavy supplementation of minerals, else you lose more minerals from your water circulation than the 0 that you gain.

Sometimes its the chemicals in the water that cause the problem.

During my fast, my sense of smell became super good but the smell of chlorine in the tap water was disgusting, I couldnt drink the stuff.

Re: Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

18days here and would carried on but had to break it for other reasons. Glutathione possibly needs to be included as this will get low and Choline or Carnitine to remove the brain fog that occurred. Averaged 18kg weight loss over the 18days, never felt so good in my life, like being a teenage male ramped up on Testosterone again, amazingly easy to fall asleep, excellent quality of sleep, vivid dreams which are recall…

This is a very complex topic and Glutathione or NAC has a half life of only ~5 hours. Had I to do it I would take ALCAR 2000MG but still you are playing with a lot of unknowns phamarcologically speaking. As i said a lab test of bioenergetics level, oxidative stress and apotosis are needed to bring confidence.

> you are playing with a lot of unknowns phamarcologically

Totally agree, but maintaining brain function is my priority the ALCAR may also help considering its similar to choline.

Re: Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)

#160
post #129

I've got two bad knees, lower back, and neck from wrestling in College. I'm just about to turn 30 but have the disks/joint of a 65+ year old. It is really depressing that stem cells could help but cost so much. I looked into getting out of the country stem cell therapy and its close to 50K+ USD. Insurance doesnt cover any of that. Here's to hoping that the cost comes down and insurance starts to cover it.

I have a bad knee/ankle from landing a jump on a motorcycle wrong. Existence is pain. I hope soon the doctors can find the source of the pain. Kaiser refused to do anything over the course of years. MRI in a couple weeks once new insurance gets around to approving it. Why do we put up with this in the US? :(

Come join the https://pnhp.org

Physicians for national health plan. They're actually making moves.

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