Fasting And Longevity: Short-Term Diet 'Reboots' The Body

Previous studies have long-debated the health benefits of fasting. What sounds like a quick and easy way to shed pounds fast with no calorie counting involved can ultimately slow down your metabolism and even disrupt circadian rhythms, increasing the risk of weight gain when one returns to a normal diet. But is there more to fasting than just potential weight loss?

Researchers at the University of Southern California examined a new diet intervention that can be followed just five days a month while improving several health measures, including reducing the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

"Strict fasting is hard for people to stick to, and it can also be dangerous, so we developed a complex diet that triggers the same effects in the body," said the study's lead researcher Valter Longo, director of the USC Longevity Institute, in a press release. "I've personally tried both, and the fasting mimicking diet is a lot easier and also a lot safer."

The study involved a trial of 19 participants and was designed to replicate Longo's yeast and mouse trials. Participants limited their caloric intake by 34 to 53 percent once a month for a five day period at levels just low enough to mimic the effects of fasting. The diet includes about five days of 750-1,050 calories a day based on a very specific regimen of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and micronutrients.

"[It] looks like a low calorie plant-based diet but, in fact, [it] is designed to turn on stem cells and trigger regenerative effects and beneficial changes in many risk factors for aging and diseases," Longo added.

Three months in, the researchers measured the participants' biomarkers and found that risks for numerous health issues had decreased, including diabetes, heart disease and even cancer. Furthermore, the diet even decreased the amount of the growth hormone IGF-1, which is initially important for early development but can also spur early aging. The same hormone is also linked to cancer susceptibility. Prior to this study, Longo demonstrated how fasting can trigger cell regeneration in damaged cells, including immune damage, with findings published in Cell Stem Cell.

"This is arguably the first non-chronic pre-clinically and clinically tested anti-aging and healthspan-promoting intervention shown to work and to be very feasible as a doctor or dietitian-supervised intervention," Longo said. "The FMD intervention will now undergo the rigorous process needed for FDA approval, which will first require confirmation and additional tests in 60 to 70 participants, followed by a trial with 500-1,000 participants."

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the journal Cell Metabolism.

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