Hello Health Champions! Today I want to talk about fasting. Is intermittent
fasting safe and effective or are there dangers that you should be concerned
with. I'm gonna bring up some of the most common objections and then I'll also
take a look at what the research has to say about that.
Coming right up. Hey I'm Dr. Ekberg. I'm a holistic doctor and a former
Olympic decathlete and if you want to truly master health by understanding how
the body really works make sure you subscribe and hit that notification bell
so you don't miss anything. I'm going to use an article from Web MD to illustrate
some of the most common objections and concerns about fasting and they're
asking in this article two questions one do fasting diets work and two is fasting
safe so unfortunately anytime they ask if something works they're talking about
weight loss which is kind of sad because fasting is about so much more than that
it is very effective for weight loss but that's really the smallest part of it
but here's what they're saying if you're fasting to lose weight you may want to
reconsider the weight loss may not last after you finish fasting so let me get
this straight they're saying that if you do a certain thing you could get a
certain result but then if you stop doing that thing then you may not get
the result anymore that's like saying that you shouldn't water your plants
because your plants are just gonna dry out if you stop watering them and don't
clean your house because it's just gonna get dirty if you stop cleaning it and of
course don't take any more showers because you're just gonna get dirty if
there comes a time where you don't take showers anymore
alright that's ridiculous right but it's all based on this idea of a diet that as
a culture we have this idea that we can do something for a short time and get a
result but what we have to understand that all of this
about incorporating into a lifestyle things that will get the benefits that
we desire and then they add to this and say when you're done fasting and you go
back to your usual diet you may regain the weight you lost and then some .
Of course but the key word here is the usual diet what is the usual diet well
most people think that it's whatever we have been eating for the last few years
that's the normal usual diet but I'd like to make the case that fasting is
the usual diet right fasting not something you do and then you go back to
the usual fasting is the usual diet why because intermittent fasting is what
humans have done for as long as we've been around there's always for all the
animals on the planet there have been times of more food and there's been time
of less food and that's called intermittent fasting it is the most
natural human lifestyle that there is what's really unnatural is to have three
meals a day turn into six meals a day plus snacks we our bodies are not
designed for that we have no defense against that much food I'm sure you've
heard the next objection that your metabolism can slow down they say when
you eat less than you need and you lose weight your body goes into starvation
mode to save energy your metabolism slows down but what we have to
understand is that all the restriction slows down metabolism whether it's
fasting or calorie restriction or low carb or low fat any restriction will
slow metabolism a little bit in the short term but what we're interested in
knowing is what happens in the long term and fasting an intermittent fasting is
the most powerful way to reduce insulin resistance and when we reduce insulin
and insulin resistance we increase the availability of stored
we make more fuel available to metabolize and in doing that we also
reduce leptin resistance which will reduce appetite and cravings it will
help us control our appetite better and fasting will increase growth hormone
which is fat burning and muscle sparing so these three factors all put together
is actually the best way to increase metabolism in the long run it may be the
only way that we can truly restore a healthy metabolism the officially
recommended way which is to eat less and exercise more to have calorie
restriction with frequent meals has been proven over and over to fail we saw this
in the popular show Biggest Loser where people had low calorie intake they
worked out they burned enormous amounts of energy they lost weight very quickly
but they gained it all back because they crashed their metabolism so that is the
kind of restriction that will slow metabolism fasting can actually restore
your metabolism in the long run and WebMD offered a handful of references to
support their case but I want to contrast that with an article I found at
the National Institute of Health public access it was written by Walter D Longo
and Marc P Matson and they are two researchers in the area of intermittent
fasting and metabolism and physiology to see what sort of benefits or detriment
might happen to the body as a result of fasting and they had gone through pretty
much every research article that there is on the topic so they had pages after
pages after pages of references and why am i showing you all this well simply to
make a point that when the proponents of intermittent fasting argue their case
that there is some information there has been some research done they're not just
randomly arguing their opinion next question is fasting safe
WebMD says fasting for a few days probably won't hurt most people who are
healthy but fasting for long periods is bad for you
what are the researchers have to say on that in humans one of the best
demonstrations of the benefits of long term fasting lasting one to three weeks
is in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis there is little doubt that
during the period of fasting both inflammation and pain are reduced in
rheumatoid arthritis patients so that's a crippling debilitating autoimmune
disease the only thing the medical profession can do is to give them
immunosuppressant drugs but the disease progresses anyway so here we have not
healthy people fasting more than a few days and they get better that doesn't
sound like a bad thing to me in another study they took water only and other
forms of long-term fasting have also been documented to lower blood pressure
on an average of 13 day of water only fasting it resulted in the lowering of
blood pressure in 82 percent of patients again another incurable irreversible
chronic condition that in less than two weeks they lowered it in 82 percent of
people not a bad thing the fifth objection is that your body needs
certain nutrients and if you don't get enough nutrients then you could have
symptoms such as fatigue dizziness constipation dehydration not being able
to tolerate cold temperatures and fasting too long can be life-threatening
so what caused these symptoms well they found in the research that there is a
critical transition period of about 3 to 6 weeks during which time the brain and
the body to the new eating pattern and then mood
is enhanced so just like everything else the body needs a little time to get
adapted but just like they found not only did the symptoms go away but people
actually felt better their mood improved they went on to say that it is likely
that during the latter transition period brain neuro chemistry changes so that
the addiction to regular consumption of food throughout the day is overcome and
we know today that a lot of people are addicted to food whether it is the
frequency or the quality or the type of food that they're eating but they have
found that intermittent fasting can help people overcome those addictive
behaviors and then we get to one of my pet peeves this is the stuff I kind of
get upset about when they say that don't fast even for a short time if you have
diabetes because it can lead to dangerous dips and spikes in blood sugar
when we talk about type 2 diabetics their problem is hyperinsulinemia too
much insulin and what the research says is that fasting for three or more days
causes a 30% or more decrease in circulating insulin and glucose so what
that means is if your insulin is too high and you fast it comes down it's
your best bet to reverse the condition but when they say that you can't fast if
you have diabetes what they're saying is you've screwed up your blood sugar
handling and we are suppressing your symptoms with insulin but if you start
fixing the problem on your own then the insulin is gonna push your blood sugar
too low and we wouldn't want that right so the only thing that could really help
them they're saying not to do instead of saying hey learn how much insulin to
take when you start fasting and of course if you stop eating then you can't
take the usual amount of insulin because of course
your blood sugar is going to drop but all it is is to learn to balance it and
fasting can actually reduce and reverse that condition type 2 diabetes is of
course associated with metabolic syndrome and the researchers say on that
topic periodic fasting can reverse multiple features of the metabolic
syndrome in humans it enhances insulin sensitivity stimulates lipolysis and
reduces blood pressure so the very thing that could actually help these people
they're told not to do next on the topic of safety
WebMD says that your body needs vitamins minerals and other nutrients from food
to stay healthy and then based on that they say that other people who should
not fast include women who are pregnant or breastfeeding as well as anyone with
a chronic disease the elderly and children and on that topic the research
says although extreme dietary interventions during old age may
continue to protect from age-related diseases meaning that it still has
anti-aging benefits extreme intervention could have detrimental effects on the
immune system and the ability to respond to certain infectious diseases wounds
and other challenges in other words if you're too weak you shouldn't go too
hard at the fasting then they say however intermittent fasting or
prolonged fasting designed to avoid weight loss and maximize nourishment has
the potential to have beneficial effects on infectious diseases wounds and other
insults even in the very old so if you're frail
don't do it too hard you don't have to do fasting to try to lose weight that
that's just kind of a side effect you do it to optimize autophagy
and all of the benefits of lowering insulin resistance and so forth so based
on the research the elderly can still do fasting what about pregnant women and
children well as long as you optimize nutrition and you eat enough there's not
a problem you can still get tremendous benefits by having a fourteen to sixteen
our fasting window that means you still have up to 10 hours of feeding and when
I grew up that was called three meals a day so not only does the research refute
these alleged dangers of intermittent fasting but they go one step further and
they say intermittent fasting and prolonged fasting based approaches
toward combating the current epidemics of overweight diabetes and related
diseases should be pursued in medical treatment plans not just that it's okay
but it should be done it should be the standard treatment in medical care and
one more thing that it can help with in addition by protecting cells from DNA
damage suppressing cell growth and enhancing apoptosis of damaged cells
fasting could retard and/or prevent the formation and growth of cancers but if
intermittent fasting and prolonged fasting can have all those benefits then
why is it not the standard of care why is it so opposed in mainstream medicine
and I think the reason is that mainstream medicine claims to be based
in science and research but they're very very conservative they're moving very
very slowly and they don't have to change much every time something new
comes around like low carb or intermittent fasting or keto which again
isn't really new it's what humans have done but it's different than what humans
have done in the last 50 years then they say oh sure it seems like it might work
for weight loss in the short term but we need more research and they're waiting
for this research to be done so that a generation or
from now they might have to change their mind so what's really going on is that
they're clinging to outdated research and why are they doing that because they
are the cultural authority they don't have to change until very recently when
information is being made available on the internet and people are starting to
learn and they're asking difficult questions now the medical profession has
to start keeping up and as I've said before this doesn't make them bad people
it just makes them human humans don't really like to change if they don't have
to and if you're the cultural authority you don't have to they're very very good
at what they do which is to treat symptoms and handle emergencies and
crises they're just not very good at health so we as the public have to
understand the difference that we go to the mainstream medicine with emergencies
and we learn how to take care of our health on our own intermittent fasting
and even prolonged fasting can be very safe and effective if we have some
common sense so first rule do it gradually then adapt it to your health
status so if you're very young or very old if you're pregnant if you have some
pre-existing condition then learn enough that you can do it appropriately for you
and finally don't do it at all where at least don't do prolonged fasting if
you're already malnourished or if you're emaciated or cachectic which is the end
stage of cancer where you're just wasting away those are not the times to do this or if
you're too thin already then eat some food and if you like this video then I
think you're really gonna like that one too
thank you so much for watching I'll see you next time