Just skip a meal and do yourself some good – is that possible??
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Fasting makes you healthy. It may help prevent Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and breast cancer. And for those who enjoy fasting, it is easy to integrate it into everyday life.
Jesus did it in the desert, Muslims do it in Ramadan, Buddhists and Jews do it, too – every major religion knows fasting. Today, science shows: It’s not only culturally determined that people don’t eat every once in a while, it’s also biological. Our bodies are programmed to fast. For him there is a time to eat and a time to starve. Nothing to do with a bikini figure or a six-pack. It’s objectively sound.
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"In laboratory experiments, curbing energy intake from food increases the life expectancy of mice and rats by 30 to 40 percent," said U.S. researcher Mark Mattson during a lecture at Johns Hopkins University.
"In laboratory experiments, the life expectancy of mice and rats increases by 30 to 40 percent when energy intake is curbed by food intake."
Mark Mattson, neuroscientist
The head of the Neuroscience Research Laboratory at the Institute on Aging in Baltimore studies the relationship between the body’s energy intake and brain diseases such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s Dementia Living with forgetfulness . "Fasting is good for the brain. In animal studies, we can explain very precisely why that is and how it works," says Mattson.
You can eat less in many ways – people used to dieting know that only too well. Basically two variants are to be distinguished: eat constantly less or extend the distances between the meals. In technical jargon, the latter is called intermittent fasting.
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When you eat, the energy goes to the liver, where it is stored as glycogen. It takes about 12 to 18 hours for the glycogen to break down in the liver. But this never happens with three meals a day – unless you are physically active.
But if you don’t eat for long enough, the liver has time to break down the glycogen. Then fat burning begins, with ketones being produced. Although they did not know it, the ancient Romans already used their effect: If one of them had an epileptic seizure Day of epilepsy The sudden thunderstorm in the head, he was locked in a room without food. That, it was believed at the time, would exorcise its demons. In fact, the ketones – which are still used today to treat epilepsy – did help.
In Siberia, patients suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes, rheumatism or allergies have been treated with fasting cures since 1995. Successful in about two-thirds.
Eating means stocking up on energy
Our most important energy suppliers are carbohydrates. They are processed into sugar and enter the blood. As blood sugar rises, so do insulin levels. Insulin funnels sugar into the body’s cells, where it is burned for energy when needed.
Not eating means tapping energy stores
Short-term or intermittent fasting is when you don’t eat for 16 hours (for example, you skip one meal a day) or go without food for one day a week. The body then has to break down energy reserves.
Fasting means stress for the body. Researcher Mattson says the brain learns to cope with stress through this strain. When fasting, the body activates its self-healing mechanisms Sickness How the senses support self-healing , where it plays a minor role whether you go without food for 16 hours every day, skip eating one day a week or fast for a few days every month. The main thing is to do it on a somewhat regular basis. And in keeping with the lifestyle.
Like exercise, intermittent fasting makes you feel better. This is because in both cases proteins are created in the brain, which in turn form new nerve cells and new connections between them. This improves learning and memory. These proteins help prevent Parkinson’s. "We’ve also found that intermittent fasting causes cells to repair defective genetic material," says Mark Mattson.
Fasting is not dangerous per se, evolutionary biology is now sure of that. Even the very first animals on earth must have had a mechanism thanks to which they were able to cope with prolonged periods of hunger, appetite& Satiety So you could keep control through without suffering damage to your health. Three hot meals and two snacks in between are about the last thing we are made for.
The realization is not completely new. Paracelsus, one of the fathers of Western medicine, is said to have said: "Fasting is the best cure.And 4000 years earlier, the ancient Egyptians adorned a pyramid with an inscription that read: "Man lives on a third of everything he eats. From the remaining two thirds live the physicians.
"It’s no coincidence that overweight, less physically active women have an increased risk of breast cancer."
Ruth Patterson, professor of cancer prevention
Ruth Patterson, a professor of cancer prevention at the University of San Diego, also sees links between diet and breast cancer risk. "We know estrogen is a risk factor for breast cancer because estrogen is a growth factor. That’s exactly what insulin is. Depending on what we eat, our insulin level increases. It’s no coincidence that overweight, less physically active women and women with diabetes have an increased risk of breast cancer," the researcher says.
Who eats constantly, builds only reserves
Those who eat constantly draw their energy directly from the blood. The body stores the excess sugar in the liver and muscles. When those stores are full, it creates fat reserves from the energy of sugar.
One way to lower insulin levels is to take breaks from eating, because insulin is released when it is needed. And it is not only a potent growth factor, but above all a storage hormone. It’s involved in storing the sugar The Sweet Killer , which we don’t burn, as glycogen in the liver and muscles.
Their storage capacity is limited to around half a kilo. When the stores are full, additionally supplied carbohydrates are converted into fat. Fat stores are practically unlimited – bad news for all weight loss enthusiasts.
For people who want to reduce fat winter flab So reduce weight continuously, longer food breaks are therefore useful. Laboratory experiments also suggest that. Mice that were only allowed to eat for eight hours a day ended up slimmer than mice that were allowed to nibble around the clock – even though they consumed the same amount of energy overall.
Executive researcher Satchin Panda of the Salk Institute in California says, "For years, all we talked about was calorie consumption and consumption, healthy eating and fitness training Strength training Why you should get over yourself . Today we believe that when someone eats is at least as important as what they eat."
In his experiment, Panda also found that those mice who ate for only eight hours at a time also had better liver values, less inflammation and better cholesterol and blood sugar levels.
Those mice that ate all day, on the other hand, had high cholesterol Cholesterol Dick in business thanks to the fat lie , high blood sugar levels, a fatty liver and other metabolic problems.
Mice show the way: Eating all the time makes you fat
Experiment: researchers fed two groups of mice the same amount of food. One group was allowed to eat whenever they wanted, the other only during eight hours. Result: The continuous eaters became fat and lived less long than the others.
For Panda, the reason lies in the past: "For millions of years, people ate only during the day. It’s only in the last 50 years that food has been available around the clock. "Our data suggest that our digestion needs a break during the night, just like our brain insomnia sleep, where are you? . Stomach and liver regenerate overnight."
Before Panda’s findings can be used to prevent and combat obesity and diabetes, studies on humans are needed. "Still, the data can be called a paradigm shift," says biology professor.
"It’s no longer simply about how many calories you eat and how many you consume, but about when we eat and how that affects calorie consumption and health." It would now be necessary to explore on a larger scale whether the timing of eating also affects the negative characteristics of too high fructose diet How to find hidden sugar – and carbohydrate consumption.
"What interests me most about fasting is the health benefits," says Lawrence Rajendran. The cell biologist conducted research with his team in Schlieren for the University of Zurich until mid-2019 and is interested in neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia "Dementia is not simply slow forgetting and redemption" and Alzheimer’s disease.
"Alzheimer’s disease is a consequence of aging. There is a hereditary component, but it’s small," he says. Basically, we know that Alzheimer’s disease develops when amyloid plaque is deposited between neurons in the brain, a type of metabolic waste.
Rajendran: "It’s a small protein, a peptide, that accumulates. We don’t know for sure how it happens and if it’s really the cause of Alzheimer’s – it could be infections, our lifestyle, our diet. Probably it is a combination of everything."
Rajendran investigates whether fasting can prevent Alzheimer’s disease. It is known that amyloid deposits are no longer disposed of in patients with the disease. "When the brain has food in abundance, the waste-shredding mechanism shuts down. The consequence: more of the waste is left lying around. We explain it by the fact that the waste recycling is a real recycling booth. If enough external food comes in now, you don’t have to recycle as much to have enough," Rajendran said.
The finding could be used to prevent Alzheimer’s disease: If you don’t feed the body enough, the cells fire up the recycling mechanism and clear away the plaques that would otherwise accumulate. Rajendran says it is best to fast in the middle years. In elderly patients, nutrient deprivation could also have negative effects. So fasting may be more appropriate for Alzheimer’s as prevention than therapy.
"We still know a long way from everything today," he says. "We know that there are also types of cancer for which fasting has an extremely positive effect. Of course, you should never do something like this without a doctor’s supervision, though."
Based on his findings, the neurobiologist has changed his lifestyle: "Since I’ve known the results of this research, I skip breakfast Slimming How to really lose weight . I know why."
Those who fast regularly keep their line and are healthier. However, the latter does not apply to all.
Children and teenagers should not fast as a matter of principle. If it is a question of combating genuine overweight, you should consult specialists and, above all, make sure that no classic fasting cure takes place, but rather a long-term change in diet.
Pregnant women and nursing mothers should never fast (see "Every diet is a risk").
Seniors should not fast either. For them, a slightly higher body mass index statistically provides better health and a longer life.
People with mental illnesses or metabolic diseases (type 1 diabetes)
In no case should fast without medical supervision underweight people and people who are under medical treatment and need to take regular medication (especially cardiovascular drugs or psychotropic drugs).
The buzzword Detox is short for Detoxification – detoxification. Originally it was used for drug withdrawal. Then the wellness industry discovered the term and supported it with the following "theory": Today, so many environmental toxins – heavy metals, exhaust fumes, plasticizers, pesticide residues – are pelting us that the body can no longer cope with them. The toxins would accumulate, slag the organism and – depending on the source – even bind fat.
The resourceful market also immediately offered solutions: For a lot of money you get not only juice and tea cures, but also pills, powders and patches that are supposed to pull the poison out of the soles of your feet overnight. On offer is even clothing designed to detoxify and slim down when worn. Theoretically, then, all those who cannot afford detox cures should have long since gone in as human blast furnaces. There is a simple reason why this is not the case: Our body can eliminate almost everything that is useless or harmful, especially via the liver and kidneys.
One does not have to spend thus a centime, if one wants to detoxify the body. But you can support it by temporarily abstaining from food and drinking plenty of water. This is especially true for those who eat a diet that is too salty or too sweet, and who consume too many bad fats. Fasting also reduces fat tissue, where toxins and other residues are most likely to collect. And with the water our body gets the necessary support to flush out the toxins. An amazingly simple Detox cure – however with tap water one makes now times no cash.