New discovery on the benefits of intermittent fasting

Human beings have acquired the habit of eating for either out of boredom, fun, stress, and other leisure times.

Fasting is not self-starvation, but intentionally choosing to use calorie restriction, eat less, and have your meals in less frequencies spread out at certain durations of the day.By intermittent fasting you are restricting food intake for the first half of your day and than later introducing foods at the latter half. You essentially create windows of timeframes you fast under. Fasting has existed since ancient times and is completely healthy when done under the right supervision. -You can fast for spiritual reasons, political reasons or health conscious reasons.

While the benefits of intermittent fasting for weight loss are pretty well know, restricting your eating to a particular time can do a lot more than just trim your waistline. Intermittent fasting has a range of other benefits, including increased stress resistance, longer lifespan, and a lowered risk of obesity and cancer, according to a new study from researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The study was published in December 2019 in The New England Journal of Medicine.

By analysing several previous studies of people and animals on a time-restricted diet, the researchers found mounting evidence that intermittent fasting can have a powerful effect on overall health. While individual fasting regimens vary, the meal plans the researchers studied generally fell into two categories: eating only in a six to eight hour window every day, and eating only one modest meal on two days of the week.

Fasting could provide a boost for heart health, reduce stress, improve blood sugar regulation, and reduce inflammation. In addition, four separate studies on humans and animals found that intermittent fasting helped lower blood pressure, blood lipid levels, and resting heart rates—all key improvements in cardiac health.

Fasting could also help counteract obesity and diabetes. Another two studies in the U.K. followed 100 overweight women and compared fasting with traditional calorie counting. Women who fasted lost the same amount of weight as those who counted calories, but had less belly fat and improved insulin sensitivity.

It is believed that fasting triggers metabolic switching, a cellular adaptation to food scarcity: When the body uses up its reserves of easily accessible insulin derived from food, it switches to burning fats for energy. That switch in the body’s fuel source—previously touted for its weight loss benefits—could also trigger fasting’s other important health benefits.

Gradually increasing the length and frequency of your fasts over a few months will be easier with regular intermittent fasting.