Live longer by metabolic fasting

Calorie restriction might help you live longer

We always are keen that everyone in the Box has eaten well before coming in to make sure you get most out of your workout. Eating well and balanced will create an hormonal balance which will help with losing weight and feeling energetic.

I have been looking into Calorie restriction diets lately and researched the benefits of this. Living on a low calorie diet doesn't make you necessarily lose body fat as it slows down your metabolism and therefor you will burn less. So starving yourself every day won't really make you lose weight but  cutting calories every now and then might make you life longer!

Many research has been done with animals including monkeys:

Mattson and his colleagues have shown that periodic fasting protects neurons against various kinds of damaging stress, at least in rodents. One of his earliest studies revealed that alternate-day feeding made the rats' brains resistant to toxins that induce cellular damage akin to the kind cells endure as they age. In follow-up rodent studies, his group found that intermittent fasting protects against stroke damage, suppresses motor deficits in a mouse model of Parkinson's disease and slows cognitive decline in mice genetically engineered to mimic the symptoms of Alzheimer's.

One of intermittent fasting's main effects seems to be increasing the body's responsiveness to insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar. Decreased sensitivity to insulin often accompanies obesity and has been linked to diabetes and heart failure; long-lived animals and people tend to have unusually low insulin, presumably because their cells are more sensitive to the hormone and therefore need less of it.

 A few observational studies reported the effects of prolonged CR, in the context of high-quality diets, on health and longevity. Kagawa carefully analyzed data documenting the prevalence of centenarians on the island of Okinawa (Japan). Total energy consumed by schoolchildren on Okinawa was only 62% of the “recommended intake” for Japan as a whole. For adults, total protein and lipid intakes were about the same, but energy intake was 20% less than the Japanese national average. The rates of death due to cerebral vascular disease, malignancy, and heart disease on Okinawa were only 59%, 69%, and 59%, respectively, of those for the rest of Japan.

Also blood presure seems to drop with CR diet and heart decease drop.

Note though that fasting on a bad diet is unhealthy and won't give you the same effects. If you fast you need to make sure you eat healthy on the days/times you do eat. Fasting could be skipping a meal or  have your dinner early and breakfast the next day late.

There is still not a lot of evidence how all works in the human body as the research on humans is still to new, but it seems in animals used there are a lot of benefits to skip a meal every now and then.