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Alternate-day fasting may shrink fat cells

BERKELEY, Calif., Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Alternate-day fasting -- fasting or eating half as much as usual every other day -- may shrink fat cells, a University of California, Berkeley study found.

On the fasting day, people consume no-calorie beverages, tea, coffee and sugar-free gum and they drink as much water as they need.

Researcher Krista Varady and colleagues studied the effects of alternate-day fasting on 24 male mice for four weeks. To assess the impact of alternate-day fasting on the health of the mice, the scientists not only tested mice that followed and didn't follow an alternate-day fasting diet, but they also studied mice that followed the diet only partially: a group of mice consumed 50 percent of their regular diet every other day and another consumed 75 percent of their regular diet every other day.

The study, published in the October issue of the Journal of Lipid Research, found mice that followed the complete alternate-day fasting diet lost weight and that the fat cells of both the 100 percent alternate-day fasting and 50 percent alternate-day fasting groups shrunk by more than half and by 35 percent, respectively.



http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/ind...natefasting.xml

I wonder if eating just on the weekends would work?

But how many can go five days without eating? I would be weak and have a headache all the time.

I hope the mice enjoyed their coffee, tea and SF gum

That's an old study [method], some group was planning to do a longer one with humans. Some of us in the IF [Intermittent Fasting] thread are already doing it to various degrees.

No! Nonononononono. NO.

Visit the IFing thread before you go and stop eating all week! Yikes.

found this tonight and thought the IF people might like it --



Still, since it's reducing intake by half, doesn't seem like it's much more than starvation.

PJ, I'm pretty sure total calories weren't reduced in either of the groups. On the fasting day one group ate nothing and the other group ate 50% of their 'normal' calorie intake. On the 'eat' day one group ate double what they normally do, and the other group half as much again.

These studies (like most metabolic research) are usually at most a month long.
What people actually doing IF find is that after the first few months what they had been eating on low carb alone is considerably reduced, without even trying.

Stuart

What makes you say that?

Usually people (and mice) eat more when they're not fasting, provided they're eating "ad lib". Not as many totally calories perhaps, but certainly they're not eating more than half as many.

I dont think I could not eat for a whole day!

Here's the abstract for the study.

http://www.jlr.org/cgi/content/abstract/48/10/2212

It says the mice had their calories reducted by either 25%, 50% or 100% on the alternate day for the fasts. It doesn't say whether the mice were allowed to eat ad libitum on the regular day or whether they were "restricted" to their previous normal caloric intake before fasting so it's impossible to know if they made up any or all of the calories they didn't eat on the fast days when then ate on the regular days.

ojoj,
it depends on where the 24h start! i do a 18-20h intermittend fast since mid March every day and it isn't no big deal anymore. I eat within a window starting around 6pm for 4 hours. Although technically speaking this isn't "every-other-day" I could do it for 24h (tried this out) but i do not see currently any additional benefit in doing so.
I get my usual hunger pangs at around 10 am, 1 pm, and 4 pm but it is not difficult anymore to resist. Drinking a lot of water during the day helps a lot. And also avoiding cantenes. When i don't give in to my sweet tooth i eat less in this time windows than i would if i ate 3 meals per day because i am satiated faster. I started with an "all-you-want-to eat" style and recently switched (again) to low-carb because i got so frustrated from the experience that eating carbs makes you want eat just more carbs (sweets, potatoe chips, whatever). Somedays it works fine without sugar cravings, on other days i have to use a little help from Splenda...

Even eating ad libitum on the feasting days, I've found you don't entirely make up for the fasting day's calories. So some of the positive results may simply be from reduced caloric intake. I do think there's a certain amount of common sense about the idea that food (any food) acts as something if an irritant to the system, and that reducing intake would reduce the "wear-and-tear" on the body. Unfortunately I grew up with the live to eat philospohy, so I'm more of less of the mindset that sacrificing a few years of life to enjoy the rest better, is worth it. Not only that, but your odds of dying of other causes go up as you age (cancer, hit by bus, etc.), so why forego the good things in life for what is not a sure thing?

Let's also remember that they only looked at male mice. Since fat regulation is controlled by hormones this doesn't necessarily indicate anything about how female mice (or female humans) might react.

The fasted mice were CRed (thanks ValerieL). It's expected that their fat stores will shrink if they are calorie restricted.

Also, lets not forget insulin controls the release of fat from fat cells. If you eat a diet that increases insulin (like, lab mouse chow?) it's going to improve metabolism to eat less frequently, right? This way you concentrate your insulin spike, and the rest of the time your body is free to liberate fatty acids as needed (or, until metabolic conservation from calorie restriction/losing too much fat then kicks in).

Findings are expected but not really relevant. Who wants to fast their whole life? If someone put a gun to my head and made me choose I would rather eat less carbs than only eat 4 hours a day. Both will have the same results. If you want to lose more weight, you've got to lower your insulin. You can do it by fasting (avoiding food and concentrating insulin spike). Or you can do it by further carb restriction (or alternately, keeping carbs constant but reducing calories/fats, because increased fats and calories make your carbs produce more insulin).

In fact, fasting every other day is about the most unpalatable method I can think of to reduce insulin levels. But that's just me. If it works for you, enjoy.

There are variations on fasting every other day that people do that aren't that difficult.