nourishment
That’s why fasting is so healthy – and better than any diet
Instead of 2000 calories, only about 300 a day: fasting according to the method of the Hessian doctor Otto Buchinger is the fasting cure most commonly used in Europe.
© Heike Rau/ Adobe Stock
It sounds radical: for a longer period of time you only live on broth, water and tea. Fasting is trendy. No wonder: it has an almost beneficial effect on our body. And alleviates the course of numerous diseases.
Fasting – that sounds like agony and withdrawal. This is only for weight loss fanatics or religious ascetics, many might think. Pure deprivation. But that’s a misconception. Living briefly with a total lack of food has been in our genes since time immemorial: hunters and gatherers have no granaries and supermarkets. Our conservative organism, evolutionarily overtaken by the oversupply of food, apparently still loves such phases today – otherwise it first gets fat and then gets sick: If the deprivation did not last too long for our ancestors, it was a healthy balance, modern fasting research proves it. In our modern everyday life, phases without eating are practically non-existent: today, people snack up to ten times a day. We live in constant abundance.
It is known from the latest research results that the voluntary renunciation of food in the form of fasting has a rejuvenating and regenerating effect. Fasting acts as a healing shock to the body, triggering a series of biomechanical responses and healing processes. Carbohydrate reserves in the liver are broken down and blood sugar levels drop. After about 24 hours, the body switches to fasting mode. Adipose tissue is then broken down into energy-rich fatty acids. From this, the liver forms so-called ketones – an alternative fuel. This supplies the brain instead of sugar and seems to have a positive effect on neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis or dementia. Among other things, new nerve cells form from brain stem cells. There are even initial scientific results that indicate that age and cancer genes in the genetic material are silenced during fasting.
Fasting is stressful for the body – but not harmful
Instead of the usual 2000 calories a day, only around 300 are available. The starvation diet is stress for the body – but only for a short time and therefore not harmful. On the contrary, genes and proteins responsible for cell protection and renewal are activated. A kind of recycling program for cell waste – the so-called autophagy – starts. Old and damaged protein in the cells is first coated, transported away in packages, then broken down and finally used to build new proteins. A process that is said to have a positive effect on cell aging. The microbiome also regenerates, and fasting also acts as a time of recovery for the intestine and its microscopic inhabitants. Although more adrenaline and cortisol are also released, the brain soon reduces the docking points for these stress hormones. Their number decides how burdensome the effect of the stress hormones ultimately turns out to be.
Unlike dieting, calories are not important
In nutritional science, the opinion is becoming more and more widespread: It’s not the calories on the plate that count, but the hours in the day without food. Above all, the difference in the physical processes during or diet or fasting is big. If you fast, your body will soon switch to fat burning. So-called ketones are then used as an energy source instead of sugar. The metabolism of these chemical compounds appears to have a positive effect on the formation of new brain cells.