Latest studies show that fasting boosts metabolism and fights aging.
It has been examined that sporadic fasting can help some people lose weight. Even though there are still debates amongst researches regarding the effectiveness of fasting on weight loss, new research indicates other benefits.
A study on rats found that fasting can increase lifespan. Exciting as it sounds, this hasn’t been proven with humans.
New insights have been published in the journal Scientific Reports regarding the impact of fasting on humans.
Dr. Takayuki Teruya says that caloric restriction and fasting have shown an extended effect on lifespan in animals, but the detailed mechanism remains a mystery.
Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and technology Graduate University in Japan examine the impact on metabolism.
The team hopes to find ways of utilizing the benefits of fasting without the need to go without food for lengthy periods of time.
Four volunteers fasted for 58 hours for this investigation. The use of metabolomic or measurement of metabolites was used to analyze whole blood samples at intervals during this research.
What happens to the body during fasting?
A few distinct metabolic changes happen as the human body starves of food. The body will usually use carbohydrates as fuel when they are readily available. Once they are gone, it will look elsewhere for energy. In a process called gluconeogenesis (GNG) which is a metabolic pathway resulting in the generation of glucose from non-carbohydrate sources.
Scientists can find evidence of gluconeogenesis by measuring the levels of certain metabolites in the blood, including butyrate and carnitines.
As anticipated, the levels of metabolites had risen in the participants’ blood after the fasting period. Many more metabolic changes have been identified, including unexpected ones. For example, an increase in products of the citric acid cycle has been seen.
The citric acid cycle is a series of chemical reactions used by all the aerobic organisms to release stored energy.
Another unexpected finding was the increase in purine and pyrimidine levels which hasn’t been linked to fasting yet.
These chemicals are a sign of increased gene expression and protein synthesis. This means that fasting causes cells to switch up the quantity and type of proteins they require to function.
Fasting fights aging
Researchers have found an increase in the levels of antioxidants such as ergothioneine and carnosine.
In a previous study, the same research team showed that the number of metabolites decrease as we age. These metabolites include isoleucine, leucine and ophthalmic acid.
In their more recent study, the showed that fasting boosted these three metabolites. This might explain why fasting extended the lifespan in the rat case study.
The researches identified 44 metabolites that increased during fasting in all four participants.
Only 14 out of the 44 have been linked to fasting before. It has been concluded that fasting stimulates an increased metabolism rate which was not realized before.
The increase in antioxidants might be a survival response claimed by scientists, as our bodies experience high levels of oxidative stress during starvation. The production of antioxidants might help prevent some of the potential damage caused by free radicals.
Furthermore, they would like this study to be replicated with a larger sample and identify ways of exploiting the benefits of fasting without restricting caloric intake.
