Posted on 04/03/2011 12:04:17 PM PDT by decimon
Fasting found to reduce cardiac risk factors, such as triglycerides, weight, and blood sugar levels
Murray, UT (4/03/11) – Fasting has long been associated with religious rituals, diets, and political protests. Now new evidence from cardiac researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute demonstrates that routine periodic fasting is also good for your health, and your heart.
Today, research cardiologists at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute are reporting that fasting not only lowers one's risk of coronary artery disease and diabetes, but also causes significant changes in a person's blood cholesterol levels. Both diabetes and elevated cholesterol are known risk factors for coronary heart disease.
The discovery expands upon a 2007 Intermountain Healthcare study that revealed an association between fasting and reduced risk of coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death among men and women in America. In the new research, fasting was also found to reduce other cardiac risk factors, such as triglycerides, weight, and blood sugar levels.
The findings were presented Sunday, April 3, at the annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology in New Orleans.
"These new findings demonstrate that our original discovery was not a chance event," says Dr. Benjamin D. Horne, PhD, MPH, director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute, and the study's principal investigator. "The confirmation among a new set of patients that fasting is associated with lower risk of these common diseases raises new questions about how fasting itself reduces risk or if it simply indicates a healthy lifestyle."
Unlike the earlier research by the team, this new research recorded reactions in the body's biological mechanisms during the fasting period. The participants' low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C, the "bad" cholesterol) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C, the "good" cholesterol) both increased (by 14 percent and 6 percent, respectively) raising their total cholesterol – and catching the researchers by surprise.
"Fasting causes hunger or stress. In response, the body releases more cholesterol, allowing it to utilize fat as a source of fuel, instead of glucose. This decreases the number of fat cells in the body," says Dr. Horne. "This is important because the fewer fat cells a body has, the less likely it will experience insulin resistance, or diabetes."
This recent study also confirmed earlier findings about the effects of fasting on human growth hormone (HGH), a metabolic protein. HGH works to protect lean muscle and metabolic balance, a response triggered and accelerated by fasting. During the 24-hour fasting periods, HGH increased an average of 1,300 percent in women, and nearly 2,000 percent in men.
In this most recent trial, researchers conducted two fasting studies of over 200 individuals — both patients and healthy volunteers — who were recruited at Intermountain Medical Center. A second 2011 clinical trial followed another 30 patients who drank only water and ate nothing else for 24 hours. They were also monitored while eating a normal diet during an additional 24-hour period. Blood tests and physical measurements were taken from all to evaluate cardiac risk factors, markers of metabolic risk, and other general health parameters.
While the results were surprising to researchers, it's not time to start a fasting diet just yet. It will take more studies like these to fully determine the body's reaction to fasting and its effect on human health. Dr. Horne believes that fasting could one day be prescribed as a treatment for preventing diabetes and coronary heart disease.
To help achieve the goal of expanded research, the Deseret Foundation (which funded the previous fasting studies) recently approved a new grant to evaluate many more metabolic factors in the blood using stored samples from the recent fasting clinical trial. The researchers will also include an additional clinical trial of fasting among patients who have been diagnosed with coronary heart disease.
"We are very grateful for the financial support from the Deseret Foundation. The organization and its donors have made these groundbreaking studies of fasting possible," added Dr. Horne.
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Members of the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute research team included Dr. Horne, Jeffrey L. Anderson, MD, John F. Carlquist, PhD, J. Brent Muhlestein, MD, Donald L. Lappé, MD, Heidi T. May, PhD, MSPH, Boudi Kfoury, MD, Oxana Galenko, PhD, Amy R. Butler, Dylan P. Nelson, Kimberly D. Brunisholz, Tami L. Bair, and Samin Panahi.
Ping
Good for your liver too!!!
Fasting makes you lose weight? Who would have thought.
ANYTHING else is just hearsay.
My MIL has fasted regularly for decades. She’s 90, walks everywhere, takes no medicines, and still has a sharp mind. (She does have a bit of arthritis in her hands.) She also takes a host of vitamins and eats small meals.
One problem with the correlational study may be that people who fast regularly are more health conscious to begin with and probably exercise more, eat more healtful meals, etc.
“One problem with the correlational study may be that people who fast regularly are more health conscious to begin with and probably exercise more, eat more healtful meals, etc.”
Not me. I do the fasting part (very often going 40 hours between meals, sometimes up to 120 hours)...but I do it so I WON’T have to exercise (as much) or worry about what I eat in between.
Seems to work, but it has a life-changing effect, in that your body gets much better at getting every calorie it can out of food, since it doesn’t know when the next meal will be (i.e., probably a feast or famine thing programed into us from cavemen days). So the net amount of calories that you eat better drop...or you will blimp out very fast.
> My MIL has fasted regularly for decades.
About how often was “regularly” for your mother in law?
Now they are telling God something again...
Something else he already knew...
Thats why He says “Just ask ME and I will answer thee”
I used to fast for one day each week. I was exercising regularly. I would end the fast with a small breakfast the next day. On that day I would usually record my best physical performance while exercising, (weight lifting, running, etc).
I guess the Ramadan fast (no food or water between sunup and sundown, then gorge as much as you want after sunset) doesn’t count.
I have been fasting from two to five days a week for the past ten years, mainly because I feel better and sleep better on an empty stomach. I’d fast longer, but I can never make it past Friday night for some reason. Then I eat the whole weekend and start over on Monday.
Indeed, it’s a really bad joke going around the Muslim world that we find out restaurants during Ramadan do land-office business as soon as the sun sets.
Yup.
I have not tried the 24hr. fast, but about 2 years back decided that I was going to try something that DH and I had long noted on vacations - that we could quite happily eat one darn good meal a day. I made the move to only dinner because he gets home kinda late, and eating more food at that time of night, after a day of regular meals became problematic : /
Now the blood sugar is unbelievably stable, weight is much more easily managed, and you discover just how efficiently your body works : )
Prayers for Japan.
Tatt
bfl
“Now they are telling God something again...
Something else he already knew...
Thats why He says “Just ask ME and I will answer thee”
Earlier this year I went on a 21-day fast with my church. I consumed water, fruit juice and Ensure. I prayed and read the Bible and it did wonders for my mind, body and soul. One thing I would recommend for anyone thinking about going on an extended fast is to make sure you take plenty of vitamins and mineral supplements.
Do. Not. Fast. If you eat a typical junky American diet.
A short fast with plenty of fresh clean water is only beneficial if your diet is clean with enough healthy fats. If you are a big grain and sugar eater it could do more harm than good.
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