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Leptin levels, immune cell profiles improved in small studyIntermittent fasting -- defined as restricting food and drink to 500 calories a day, twice a week -- was safe and successful in a small randomized trial of patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). The study met its primary outcome of reduced serum leptin levels after 12 weeks compared with controls, according to Laura Piccio, MD, PhD, of the University of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia, and co-authors. Leptin, a proinflammatory adipokine that may have a pathogenic role in MS, was lower in the intermittent fasting group (P=0.03) after adjusting for...

The findings were presented Monday at an American Heart Association meeting in Chicago and focused on a popular version of intermittent fasting that involves eating all your meals in just eight hours or less...commonly known as "time-restricted" eating...People who adhered to the eight-hour eating plan had a 91 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease compared to people...who eat their food across 12 to 16 hours each day.

Scientists have identified a less stringent and more manageable alternative to traditional intermittent fasting, offering new possibilities for extending lifespan and promoting healthy aging. This novel method, involving short-term isoleucine deprivation, has shown remarkable results in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster). The research found that intermittent, short-term omission of only the essential amino acid isoleucine from the diet significantly increases stress resistance and extends lifespan in fruit flies. "Unlike conventional intermittent fasting, this approach does not require drastic reductions in overall food intake, making it a more practical and feasible strategy," said Tahila Fulton. Previous research has shown that moderate restriction...

Eating in a ten-hour window is associated with higher energy and mood and lower hunger levels, results from the largest UK community science study of its kind shows. Intermittent fasting (IF), or restricting your food consumption to a set window, is a popular weight loss regime. A ten-hour window means limiting your daily eating schedule to ten hours and fasting for the remaining 14 hours. For example, if you eat your first bite at 9am, you must eat your last bite by 7pm. Despite some IF advocates commonly promoting restrictive eating windows as low as six hours, findings detailed in...

Time-restricted eating, also known as intermittent fasting, can help people with type 2 diabetes lose weight and control their blood sugar levels, according to a new study. Participants who ate only during an eight-hour window between noon and 8 p.m. each day actually lost more weight over six months than participants who were instructed to reduce their calorie intake by 25%. Both groups had similar reductions in long-term blood sugar levels, as measured by a test of hemoglobin A1C, which shows blood sugar levels over the past three months. The study was conducted at UIC and enrolled 75 participants into...

Ive known about it for many years but have been watching this Dr Jamnadas on YouTube and I’m getting motivated again. See link for one of his videos if interested.

A study analyzes in old rats the effects of a calorie-restricted diet on the hippocampus, a brain structure that is critical in learning and memory processes. The results corroborate that there is a cognitive improvement derived from diet, linked to a reduction in the levels of inflammation and neuronal loss in the hippocampus. It has been described that some of the brain alterations observed during aging are related to the cognitive dysfunction that manifests naturally as we age. These processes, which depend on both genetic and environmental factors, are particularly important in the hippocampus. Calorie-restricted diets have been shown to...

Intermittent fasting, especially when done over the course of decades, can have positive effects on metabolic and cardiovascular health. Now, a new study finds that it may also add an extra layer of protection from heart-related COVID-19 complications in people who had already sought cardiac care. "We already know that regular fasting over long periods of time can lead to overall health improvements. Here we found that it may also lead to better outcomes in COVID-19 patients who required a cardiac catheterization," said Benjamin Horne, Ph.D. "Fasting won't necessarily stop a cardiac event from happening, but it may prevent someone...

The term intermittent fasting covers several approaches. The "Eat Stop Eat" method: Alternate days of normal eating and fasting, including two non-consecutive fasting days in a week. The 5:2 method: This alternates between five days of normal eating and two days (which can be consecutive) of 70-75% calorie reduction during the week. Time-restricted eating: This consists of narrowing the food intake window to between 6 and 10 hours per day, fasting between 14 and 18 hours during the day. With the "Eat Stop Eat" and 5:2 approaches, the data has shown they can effectively help us lose weight and improve...

A new study found that when we eat significantly impacts our energy expenditure, appetite, and molecular pathways in adipose tissue. "In this study, we asked, 'Does the time that we eat matter when everything else is kept consistent?'" said Nina Vujović, Ph.D. "And we found that eating four hours later makes a significant difference for our hunger levels, the way we burn calories after we eat, and the way we store fat." Vujović studied 16 patients with a body mass index (BMI) in the overweight or obese range. Each participant completed two laboratory protocols: one with a strictly scheduled early...

New year, same topics: nutrition, healthy eating and slowing the downhill roll of aging. Eat this, not that — never that — and try this one weird thing to look younger, right? Advice spans the spectrum from dubious to scientifically supported, but there is an approach that sidesteps it all: eat less. Either in a specific time frame or in general, limiting calories safely is called caloric restriction, food restriction or fasting. It’s not a new idea, but fasting as a health practice hasn’t taken off, and Eduardo Chini, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic researcher, knows why. “One of the...

A new study confirms the health benefits of moderate calorie restrictions in humans—and identifies a key protein that could be harnessed to extend health in humans. Dixit started by analyzing the thymus, a gland that sits above the heart and produces T cells, a type of white blood cell and an essential part of the immune system. The thymus ages at a faster rate than other organs. By the time healthy adults reach the age of 40, said Dixit, 70% of the thymus is already fatty and nonfunctional. And as it ages, the thymus produces fewer T cells. They found...

Research at Nottingham Trent University investigated the role of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) a molecule which is present in people's diets and produced by the body during digestion of fish. As foods containing TMAO are ingested, the molecule is broken down by bacteria in the gut. The breakdown product is taken up into the bloodstream and converted back to TMAO, which interacts with organs throughout the body. Importantly, the brain's circulatory and vascular system is exposed to TMAO, which interacts directly with the 'blood-brain barrier." This barrier works to prevent potentially harmful toxins in the body from reaching the brain. As...

This shows lewy bodies. Brown spots are immunostaining using an antibody specifically recognizing an abnormal form of alpha-synuclein. Clumps of α-synuclein protein in nerve cells are hallmarks of many degenerative brain diseases, most notably Parkinson's disease. "No one has been able to determine if Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites, hallmark pathologies in Parkinson's disease can be degraded," says Virginia Lee, PhD, director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. "With the new neuron model system of Parkinson's disease pathologies our lab has developed recently, we demonstrated that these aberrant clumps in...

Scientists have shown that feeding a simple polyamine called spermidine to worms, fruit flies and yeast significantly prolongs their lifespan. In addition, adding spermidine to the diet of mice decreased molecular markers of ageing, and when human immune cells were cultured in a medium containing spermidine, they also lived for longer.Spermidine - a simple linear molecule found in large quantities in human sperm and grapefruit - is known to be necessary for cell growth and maturation, and as cells age their level of spermidine is know to fall. Now, Frank Madeo from the University of Graz in Austria and his colleagues have shown...

With more than 10% of the world's population obese and 40% overweight, obesity constitutes one of the most crucial health challenges. However, existing therapeutic options remain scarce and poorly efficient. Few years ago, scientists discovered that the absorptive surface and function of the gut change due to certain external stimuli, such as exposure to cold. Increasing the food amount elevates the intestinal absorptive surface and function. Mechanistically, this is due to the enhanced expression of PPARα, a regulating protein necessary for the overeating-induced increase in the capacity of the gut to absorb calories. Furthermore, if high amounts of food increase...

Prevailing theories posit plaques in the brain cause Alzheimer's disease. New UC Riverside research instead points to cells' slowing ability to clean themselves as the likely cause of unhealthy brain buildup. Along with signs of dementia, doctors make a definitive Alzheimer's diagnosis if they find a combination of two things in the brain: amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. The plaques are a buildup of amyloid peptides, and the tangles are mostly made of a protein called tau. "Roughly 20% of people have the plaques, but no signs of dementia," said UCR Chemistry Professor Ryan Julian. "This makes it seem as...

Weight loss surgery significantly lowers the risk of major adverse liver outcomes as well as major acute cardiovascular events (MACE) in patients with biopsy-proven nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), compared with similar patients who didn't have surgery, new research shows. "This is the first study in the medical field reporting a treatment modality that is associated with decreased risk of major adverse events in patients with biopsy-proven NASH," senior author Steven Nissen, MD. As the authors point out, obesity is the main pathophysiologic driver of NASH and weight loss — however achieved — is currently the primary treatment for NASH. "However, bariatric...

In a new USC study on the health effects of a low-calorie diet that mimics fasting in the body, researchers found regular five-day cycles of the diet in mice seemed to counteract the detrimental effects of their usual high-fat, high-calorie diet. The findings point to the potential of using a fasting-mimicking diet as "medicine," according to the researchers. A fasting-mimicking diet, or FMD, is a low-calorie diet that "tricks" the body into a fasting state. One group of mice ate a high-calorie, high-fat diet (with 60% of their calories from fat) and became unhealthy and overweight. A second group of...

Intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding in general limit food, but not overall caloric intake, to specific hours of the day. (In contrast, dietary restriction, which also has been shown to increase longevity, reduces caloric intake.) "Because intermittent fasting restricts the timing of eating, it's been hypothesized that natural biological clocks play a role," says Mimi Shirasu-Hiza, Ph.D. The researchers put their flies on one of four different schedules: 24-hour unrestricted access to food, 12-hour daytime access to food, 24-hour fasting following by 24-hour unrestricted feeding, or what the researchers called intermittent time-restricted fasting or iTRF (20 hours of fasting followed...