Health and Fitness
What If We Can Package Fasting as a Therapeutic Tool
Benefits of time-restricted eating in seven health conditions as new medicine and preventative measure for metabolic diseases
It is not a dream. I did it in real life several decades ago.
Imagine a single pill that can reduce the risk of insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and some cancers, and even that can melt our bulging belly fat.
More interestingly, the genie says this pill is free, costing us nothing. Would you buy it? I don’t know about you, but I will accept it immediately. It is not a dream. I did it in real life several decades ago.
Interestingly some medical professionals in my circle say that selling fasting is tough. Of course, medical people are not salespeople.
They invested their valuable time in learning critical information in medical school, and as soon as they graduated, they got so busy supporting people suffering from pain and debilitating diseases. They have no skills and time to sell.
Another misconception is doctors are healers. In my opinion, no one is a healer. Only the body can heal itself. Physicians, mental health professionals, or spiritual leaders are only guides. They guide people to do the right thing for their bodies and minds to heal naturally. Understanding this reality is essential.
Why do I imagine fasting as a healing pill? It is because fasting allows the body to heal itself naturally by reducing visceral fat, balancing hormones, and activating autophagy. Emerging experimental and clinical studies show the benefits of fasting in lowering the risk of metabolic diseases.
I introduce the effects of hormones on our health in an article titled Hormonal Intelligence: Sharpen It to Achieve Optimal Health. Fasting can contribute to balancing hormones.
Convincing patients to fast looks like a difficult job for physicians. Fortunately, many scientists and medical doctors have started understanding the therapeutic value of fasting. Of course, some still do not believe, but they might see the light when more and more people naturally heal themselves with fasting. Theoretical research is behind experimental and clinical studies.
It is inspiring to observe cardiologists, oncologists, nephrologists, endocrinologists, dermatologists, gastroenterologists, pulmonologists, neurologists, rheumatologists, psychiatrists, and psychologists exploring the therapeutic benefits of time-restricted eating.
My sincere wish is to eliminate the nonsense of the six meals a day concept causing unnecessary suffering to millions of people and contributing to the growth of the obesity epidemic globally. Recent prospective research has “demonstrated a significant increase in disease risk with a high meal frequency as compared to a low meal frequency.”
There might be, of course, exceptional use of this approach, but it is not typical for healthy people in normal conditions. Our body is not designed to eat six meals a day. It needs some breaks to digest the food and use it as energy. Constant feeding the body looks to be nothing but a disaster making healthy people sick.
We evolved with time-restricted eating. Therefore, many religions and cultures learned the value of time-restricted eating and made fasting an essential practice. However, in the 21st century, we ignored these thousands of years of precious knowledge and manufactured snacks and offered patients to eat six times a day to stay healthy. And we blatantly suffer the consequences as a society. Obesity is preventable.
Simply understanding the role of insulin gives so many clues on the importance of time-restricted eating.
Insulin resistance is a known and proven cause of many metabolic diseases. It is now known as the elephant in the room. We know about it, but little talk about it. Many bright and brave medical doctors have started talking about this elephant and investing their precious time in fighting against it. They all see the solution in time-restricted eating.
In summary, time-restricted eating is a paradigm shift in medicine. Traditionally, doctors gave more things to do for healing, like more medication, more food, and more exercise.
But in fasting, they don’t have to offer more but remove the burden from excessive food consumption, empowering the patient for self-healing.
After this brief background portraying our dire situation globally, I’d like to touch on the remarkable health benefits of fasting for seven health conditions. I have written several articles with literature reviews. I will not repeat them. Those who are interested in detail may check the linked articles.
1- Insulin Resistance
We are designed to feed and fast. Human history and our evolution are the most considerable evidence of the importance of fasting. I believe that whoever manufactured those six meals a day was mistaken.
They seem to have no idea of the function of the insulin hormone. Insulin is not supposed to be up all the time. It needs to go up and down naturally, allowing the body to utilize stored fat.
The bloodstream can handle negligible amounts of glucose at a time. When the glucose volume passes the threshold, the body eliminates it rapidly using insulin.
Excessive glucose in the bloodstream is toxic to the body. Insulin distributes blood glucose to different cells, including muscle and fat cells and various organs.
Insulin resistance occurs when cells cease responding to insulin signals.
The pancreas creates more and more insulin to cope with the excessive glucose in the bloodstream, especially when the glycogen stores are full. This simple knowledge is essential to making lifestyle choices for fat loss.
Apart from a few drugs like metformin, the next proven approach to reducing insulin levels seems to be time-restricted eating. When we don’t consume calories, insulin stays quiet. Instead, the body uses gluconeogenesis to supply essential glucose to the bloodstream. This natural process converts amino acids to glucose.
2 — Metabolic Syndrome
I first touched on insulin resistance as it is one of the major causes of metabolic syndrome. One of the critical risk factors for metabolic syndrome is belly fat.
We need to monitor the waistline and address visceral fat using lifestyle changes recommended by qualified healthcare professionals. Here are the Five Tips to Melt Visceral Fat and Have a Defined Belly.
Metabolic syndrome is a significant problem for the aging population. As we age, our defense systems get weaker.
As a result, we get more vulnerable to heart attacks and cancers. As mentioned in this CNN video using a sample case for a patient, metabolic syndrome risks can be significantly reduced and even can be reversed at any age.
When we address insulin resistance and shrink our waistline, we can reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome. In addition, by reducing the risk of metabolic syndrome, we can decrease the risk of heart failure, type II diabetes, cancers, and neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia.
Time-restricted eating by increasing insulin sensitivity can significantly reduce the chances of metabolic syndrome. Finally, we can lose belly fat by understanding the intricacies of metabolic hormones.
3 — Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
As mentioned in this paper, “Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease is a pandemic disease worldwide, which has been paralleling the ongoing epidemics of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.”
This paper concludes that “Patients with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease have an increased risk of premature cardiovascular as well as of liver-related mortality. Of concern, up to 50% of cases, NAFLD-HCC may occur in the absence of cirrhosis, a circumstance which will often worsen the outcome.”
Studies indicate that obesity, high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and increased triglycerides in the bloodstream can be the root causes of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Several papers mention that excessive calories turning into fat cells are the primary root cause of this debilitating disease.
What is the solution to reduce excessive calories, insulin resistance, and triglycerides? As you guessed, it is not eating for a while.
Therefore, medical professionals responsible for metabolic diseases such as Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease use the fasting regime as an emerging treatment method.
4 — Cardiovascular Diseases
From a cardiologist’s perspective, high and consistent insulin spikes cause the hardening of arteries. So accumulated insulin levels can damage arteries. When doctors give insulin to patients, blood pressure immediately increases.
This simple test indicates that insulin has a severe implication for cardiovascular conditions. For example, nitric oxide is essential for blood vessels; however, insulin adversely affects it.
The good news, when insulin goes down, nitric oxide production increases. When we have more nitric oxide, our cardiovascular risks drop.
As I mentioned in point two, metabolic syndrome includes a cluster of risk factors, mainly for cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes. By addressing metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance, we can mitigate the risk of cardiovascular. Some cardiologists use fasting as a preventative treatment.
5 — Some Cancers
One of the contributing factors of fasting is to address metabolic syndrome, as mentioned in point two. And metabolic syndrome is directly associated with insulin resistance. In addition, both insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome are risks of some cancers.
Metabolic Syndrome and Risk of Cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis published in the Journal of Diabetes Care concluded that “Metabolic syndrome is associated with increased risk of common cancers; for some cancers, the risk differs between sexes and populations.” Supervised fasting by qualified medical professionals can reduce this risk.
As fasting reduces insulin resistance and activates autophagy and mitophagy, it improves the immune system. Autophagy is the natural self-eating process built in our bodies that eliminates our damaged cells, viruses, bacteria, pathogens, and harmful proteins.
Mitophagy is the natural process of removing defective mitochondria. Here are the 12 Tips to Get Denser Mitochondria for Joyful Energy.
Autophagy and mitophagy studies are intense in medicine and healthcare, longevity, metabolic health, and cancer research. Here are the three tips for initiating autophagy
6 — Inflammatory Diseases
According to Cleveland Clinic, chronic inflammation is involved in the disease process of many conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, cancer, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and type 2 diabetes.
As concluded in this study, “
The adaptive cellular responses from fasting can reduce oxidative damage and inflammation, optimize energy metabolism, and bolster cellular protection. In lower eukaryotes, chronic fasting extends longevity by reprogramming metabolic and stress resistance pathways. In rodents, intermittent or periodic fasting protects against diabetes, cancers, heart disease, and neurodegeneration, while in humans, it helps reduce obesity, hypertension, asthma, and rheumatoid arthritis. Thus, fasting has the potential to delay aging and help prevent and treat diseases while minimizing the side effects caused by chronic dietary interventions.”
From my experience, fasting has significantly reduced inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and plasma viscosity.
However, I experienced chronic stress and mild arthritis before starting a fasting regimen. Here is my experience of defeating the symptoms of arthritis, reflecting on my journey to overcoming inflammation and freeing myself from pain.
7 — Neurodegenerative Diseases
As I mentioned in a previous article citing scientific references, fasting can change brain chemistry. In this article, I introduced three beneficial neurological effects of time-restricted eating and caloric deficit for brain and mental health.
Ketones, especially β-Hydroxybutyrate, can improve the brain’s metabolism as alternative energy sources and signaling molecules. In this article, I introduced how to initiate neurogenesis and enhance cognitive reserves by delaying dementia with simple lifestyle habits. Fasting was one of the solutions. Here are the Ten Tips to Slow Down Dementia.
Brain-Derived Neuro Factor (BDNF) is a signaling protein for brain plasticity. The BDNF genes produce this protein. These genes are also part of the neurotrophin group of growth hormones. BDNF initiates neuro-genesis by keeping the neuro-circuits intact. In short, fasting is an excellent tool to increase BDNF.
In addition, we can regulate dopamine and stop the effects of punishment systems when we fast. In this article, I introduce the awareness of punishment pathways in the brain for mental health.
In the book titled “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence,” Dr. Anna Lembke, the psychiatrist, explains the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Have you seen a drug that can address those seven critical health conditions I mentioned? Interestingly, physicians say selling time-restricted eating is hard for their patients. However, when we buy it, we can empower our health and fitness significantly.
As a lifestyle habit, fasting brings introspection and deeper thinking about our bad habits and hedonistic tendencies. The meaningful messages of this well-respected cardiologist in the US, whose videos go viral, resonate with the public and many healthcare professionals.
The bottom line is that insulin is a storage molecule. It is impossible to tap into body fat as an energy source unless insulin goes down. On the other hand, when we keep insulin up all the time, we face insulin resistance creating several metabolic diseases. An efficient way of keeping insulin down is fasting.
As I touched on in this article., there are also fast-mimicking diets to fast-track fat loss. I call them a lazy way of fasting for people with hedonistic tendencies.
In addition, well-formulated ketogenic diets aiming at nutritional ketosis can mimic fasting. These diets can be effective as low carbs, moderate protein, and high healthy fats cause less blood glucose and fewer insulin spikes.
Paradoxically, fasting is a self-imposed scarcity in this abundant world. When fasting, we break the patterns of instant rewards from our dopamine system.
During this process, the body makes significant biochemical changes such as reducing insulin, increasing growth hormone, optimizing neurotransmitters, initiating autophagy, mobilizing stem cells, boosting immunity, and improving gut bacteria.
These are critical therapeutic properties and healing functions for the body. If these benefits cannot be sold in this complex and suffering world, I don’t know what can be.
If there is a single pill including these benefits, I believe many people might pay half of their income. But, ironically, such a pill comes for free and does not require effort.
Of course, fasting might not be for everyone and requires medical supervision for patients suffering from the conditions mentioned earlier. In addition, there are also known side effects that become a deterrent factor. Since I felt those side effects, based on my experience and literature review, I provided seven tips to reduce the side effects of fasting.
Here is a glimpse of my fat loss journey.
Here are my perspectives on hormones that I have been studying for many years.
Here are three metabolic diseases that supervised fasting could help.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
Related Health Articles
Three Tips to Eliminate Insulin Resistance and Shrink Waistline
Rewire the Brain to Melt Unwanted Belly Fat Preventing Obesity
Losing Fat by Understanding the Intricacies of Six Major Hormones
Sample Health Improvement Articles for New Readers
I aim to increase the hormonal intelligence of my readers and write about various hormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, glutamate, and histamine.
Here’s How I Got Healthier and Smoother Skin via 5 Lifestyle and Holistic Health Methods.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
As a new reader, please check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of experiments optimizing my hormones and neurotransmitters. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.
Petechiae, ALS, Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Heart Disease, Strokes, Obesity, Liver Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders, Homocysteine, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Brain Health, Dementia, Depression, Brain Atrophy, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance, Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, Gastrointestinal Disorders, Thyroid Disorders, Anemia, Dysautonomia, cardiac output, and urinary track disorders.
I also wrote about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:
Lutein/Zeaxanthin, Phosphatidylserine, Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, zinc, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, and other nutrients.
Disclaimer: My posts do not include professional or health advice. I only document my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives to provide information and create awareness.
As part of my creative non-fiction writing goals, I’d like to share a few stories that might warm our hearts with a bit of humor into weighty topics.
Sample Humorous Stories
Finally, After Burning Her House, Georgia Found Enlightenment
Hilarious Tips to Prevent Brain Atrophy and Keep the Gray Matter Giggling
8 Psychological Points I Had to Unlearn and Relearn the Opposite
Based on my writing experience and observations, I documented findings and strategies that might help you amplify your voice, engage your audience, and achieve your desired outcomes in your writing journey.
I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. My focus is on cellular, mitochondrial, metabolic, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.
You might join my six publications on Medium as a writer by sending a request via this link. 22K writers contribute to my publications. You might find more information about my professional background.
As a writer, blogger, content developer, and reader, you might join Medium, Vocal Media, NewsBreak, Medium Writing Superstars, Writing Paychecks, WordPress, Cliqly, and Thinkers360 with my referral links. These affiliate links will not cost you extra to join the services.
