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…19TH CENTURY: DIETS AND DIABETIC DOGS Diet became the rage around 1800 after John Rollo confirmed the existence of excess blood sugar in people with diabetes, concluding that low-carb, high-protein diets worked best. Seventy years later, French physician Appolinaire Bouchardat discovered during a food shortage that starvation worked well for his patients. By the 1880s, periodic fasting and starvation were the norm. German medical student Paul Langerhans first identified islet cells in the pancreas in 1869. In 1889, Josef von Mering and Oskar Minkowski removed the pancreas of a dog and voilà! — instant diabetes. Scottish endocrinologist Edward Sharpey-Shafer made...

An intermittent fasting diet could help protect older people from falls and other injuries by building up their muscles, a study has discovered. Intermittent fasting, also known as time-restricted eating, could also be a cost-efficient intervention to prevent type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, and liver cancer, a team from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California says. Fasting for a longer period could also better protect against infectious diseases like COVID-19 and even save people from dying of sepsis. Intermittent fasting is a dietary regimen that’s growing in popularity. The diet holds people to eating between an eight-hour...

Fasting before and during exposure to Salmonella enterica bacteria protects mice from developing a full-blown infection, in part due to changes in the animals' gut microbiomes, according to new research. When people or animals develop an infection, they often lose their appetite. However it remains controversial whether fasting protects a host from infection, or increases their susceptibility. In the new study, mice were fasted for 48 hours before and during oral infection with the bacteria Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium, a common cause of foodborne illness in people. Fasting decreased the signs of bacterial infection compared to fed mice, including nearly...

A new University of Kentucky College of Medicine study suggests that time-restricted eating may be able to help people with Type 2 diabetes reduce nocturnal hypertension, which is characterized by elevated blood pressure at night. The study found that imposing time-restricted feeding prevented diabetic mice from developing nondipping blood pressure. The practice also effectively restored the disrupted blood pressure circadian rhythm in mice that already had nondipping blood pressure. Normally, blood pressure falls at night and increases upon awakening, in line with the body's circadian rhythm. In some hypertensive patients, the typical nighttime decrease does not occur. This "nondipping" blood...

This past spring, after 18 months of great success on the keto diet, I tested my fasting blood sugar on my home glucose monitor for the first time in many months. The result shocked me. I had purchased the device, which also tests ketones, when I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes in the fall of 2015. As I embarked on low-carb keto eating, I tested my blood regularly. Soon my fasting blood sugar was once again in the healthy range. I was in optimal ketosis day after day. Not only that, I lost 10 lbs (5 kg) and felt fantastic —...

Sometimes it seems as if the diet world is nearly as polarized as the political sphere. Especially when it comes to Intermittent Fasting (IF). I wrote a piece about it last year and, almost immediately, saw people sub-tweeting me to complain about promoting an eating disorder in the name of wellness. That’s a pretty stock response to the mere mention of IF in some circles. On the other end of the spectrum are the die-hard devotees of this popular weight-loss plan, which places more emphasis on when people eat than what they eat. Earlier this fall, when Dr. Ethan Weiss,...

Scientists have found that a fasting-mimicking diet could be more effective at treating some types of cancer when combined with vitamin C. In studies on mice, researchers found that the combination delayed tumor progression in multiple mouse models of colorectal cancer; in some mice, it caused disease regression. "For the first time, we have demonstrated how a completely non-toxic intervention can effectively treat an aggressive cancer," said Valter Longo, the study senior author. "We have taken two treatments that are studied extensively as interventions to delay aging -- a fasting-mimicking diet and vitamin C -- and combined them as a...

Fasting is gaining popularity among biohackers looking for an edge, but there’s remarkably little information on what happens inside the body during a fast. While some research has shown that caloric restriction can increase lifespans in lab animals, and plenty of intermittent fasting enthusiasts swear it boosts their cognition and helps them lose weight, the molecular mechanisms have remained somewhat vague — limited mostly to the fat-burning phenomenon of ketosis. To start filling in this knowledge gap, a small new study shows that fasting’s effects on human metabolism are actually much broader than previous research has shown, and intermittent fasting...

Note: This post addresses intermittent fasting as a diet, not fasting done for religious or cultural purposes. You should consult with a doctor, nutritionist, or dietician before trying intermittent fasting, or any diet. A few weeks ago, a group of friends and I were trying to plan a fairly low-key wine and cheese night. As if trying to work around everyone’s schedules isn’t already difficult enough, we found ourselves faced with a new challenge: one of our pals was intermittent fasting and their “eating window” closed right when the rest of us could get together. Sigh.

Fasting seems to works at least as well as other diets, and may have additional health benefitsIntermittent fasting may be more than just the latest weight loss trend. According to a recent review published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it could have health benefits that go beyond those usually associated with losing weight. "We think in the long run that an intermittent fasting eating pattern will likely decrease one's risk for stroke and possibly Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases," said Mark Mattson, one of the co-authors of the review. Mattson is adjunct professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University....

The largest clinical study of its kind to look at the effects of strict alternate-day fasting in healthy people has shown a number of health benefits. The participants alternated 36 hours of zero-calorie intake with 12 hours of unlimited eating...Overall, they reached a mean calorie restriction of about 35% and lost an average of 3.5 kg [7.7 lb] during four weeks of ADF.

Intermittent fasting is known to improve sensitivity to the blood glucose-lowering hormone insulin and to protect against fatty liver. DZD scientists from DIfE have now discovered that mice on an intermittent fasting regimen also exhibited lower pancreatic fat. Fatty liver has been thoroughly investigated as a known and frequently occurring disease. However, little is known about excess weight-induced fat accumulation in the pancreas and its effects on the onset of type 2 diabetes. Intermittent fasting reduces pancreatic fat The team of scientists divided the overweight animals, which were prone to diabetes, into two groups: The first group was allowed to...

A little-known scientific process is being hailed as the new way to lose weight, look younger and prolong life. Autophagy is a natural regeneration process that occurs at a cellular level in the body, reducing the likelihood of contracting some diseases as well as prolonging lifespan. In 2016, Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi won the Nobel Prize for his discoveries into the mechanisms of autophagy. These have led to a better understanding of diseases such as Parkinson's and dementia. ... What is autophagy? The word autophagy comes from the Greek for "self" and "phagein", which means "to eat" It is the...

A diet designed to imitate the effects of fasting appears to reverse diabetes by reprogramming cells, a new USC-led study shows. "Cycles of a fasting-mimicking diet and a normal diet essentially reprogrammed non-insulin-producing cells into insulin-producing cells," said Longo, who is also a professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "By activating the regeneration of pancreatic cells, we were able to rescue mice from late-stage type 1 and type 2 diabetes. We also reactivated insulin production in human pancreatic cells from type 1 diabetes patients." The reprogrammed adult cells and organs prompted a...

"The pancreas can be triggered to regenerate itself through a type of fasting diet, say US researchers," BBC News reports. Research in mice found a low-calorie diet may help in cases of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The pancreas is an organ that uses specialised cells known as beta cells to produce the hormone insulin, which the body uses to break down sugars in the blood (glucose). In type 1 diabetes the pancreas stops producing insulin. In type 2 diabetes either not enough insulin is produced or cells in the body fail to respond to insulin (insulin resistance). Mice...

A five day diet which mimics fasting could slow down ageing, add years to life, boost the immune system and cut the risk of heart disease and cancer, scientists believe. The plan which restricts calories to between one third and a half of normal intake has been developed by academics at the University of Southern California. But now they have found that a calorie-restricted diet comprising of vegetable soups and chamomile tea has the same affect. And dieters only need to follow the Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD) for five days a month, eating what they like for the rest of...

Intermittent fasting may not only be a hot dieting trend, but it also has broader health benefits, including helping to fight inflammation, according to a new study. Previous research has shown that intermittent fasting, an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating, may improve health markers not related to weight. Now, the new research shows that intermittent fasting raises the levels of galectin-3, a protein tied to inflammatory response. "Inflammation is associated with higher risk of developing multiple chronic diseases, including diabetes and heart disease. We're encouraged to see evidence that intermittent fasting is prompting the body...

Intermittent fasting is the new health trend that is slowly but steadily encroaching on the number 1 spot. It promises weight loss, improves metabolism and reverses many lifestyle-related diseases. Now a new study review led by University of Illinois Chicago researchers says that intermittent fasting can produce clinically significant weight loss as well as improve metabolic health in individuals with obesity. The findings of the study were published in the journal Annual Review of Nutrition. "We noted that intermittent fasting is not better than regular dieting; both produce the same amount of weight loss and similar changes in blood pressure,...

Maybe you’ve tried intermittent fasting (IF) to shed a few (pandemic!) pounds, since the hope and potential for weight loss is what this eating plan is best known for. And yes, scientists are looking into whether or not it really is effective at helping people slim down. But some studies show that IF—in which you only eat during a specified time period—may have other possible long-term health benefits as well. “The goal with IF is improving metabolic health, reducing the risk of certain conditions such as diabetes, and increasing longevity,” says Laura Kelly, C.N.S., L.D.N., an advanced genomic nutritionist at...

Intermittent-fasting diets may help prevent infections in those who practice them, a study published Thursday by the journal PLOS Pathogens found. Mice orally infected with a bacteria responsible for most stomach viruses that were put on a fast for 48 hours before exposure had fewer signs of bacterial infection compared with those that were fed, the researchers said. The mice in the study were infected with Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium, which causes gastroenteritis, an infection humans experience as abdominal cramps, diarrhea and vomiting, researchers said. However, when fasted mice were infected with Salmonella intravenously, they did not have similar protection...