Hi,

this thread touches upon something I am thinking about… I am now into my 6th year of periodic fasting. In practice, I went on 5:2 for 1 year between 2012 and 2013 and then swapped to 6:1 which I have since then done. I am 71 kg (and have stayed that way +/-1kg since 2013, more or less!) and 182cm, run three times a week. So I do not want to lose more weight. My only slight concern is that my cholesterol level has been a challenge. It was excellent during 5:2 (like 4.6 with anything below 5.2 being good and healthy) and with 6:1, it has mainly been right at 5.2 with things like blood sugar being excellent, just like blood pressure and other elements. Long story short, I am not doing this for any further weight loss but to preserve the low IGF1 level (around 120 now on 6:1; I am a man 39 years of age) and the healthy weight.

BUT – and this is where I am getting confused. In terms of regenerating stem cells, it seems my “solution” – essentially one meal of 600-800 calories – over a period of roughly 36h – is useless? Is it the case that you need to fast for like 2 days to really make a difference? I also do skip meals several times a week; in my case it is the breakfast as it is by far the easiest. So I have like two occasions per week with an eating window of like 8-9h but I do eat the right amount of calories for a day. I am not losing weight and I have done this for five years now and am feeling great, having no mineral or vitamin deficiencies, so it definitely does not harm me (well, let us see in 20 years 🙂

Reality is that when I check the latest videos on the topic, a lot has changed and been redefined since 2012 when I stumbled across “Eat, fast and live longer”. I have no chance of following all the latest but do occasionally check what Mr Mosley and Mr Longo have done lately etc. You who possibly joined later than me, do you think my strategy is all wrong? Going back to 5:2 is not really an alternative for me, but 6:1 works beautifully for me and clearly has some positive impacts. Still, I am wondering if I am throwing time and efforts away with this strategy, or could substantially optimise it, of having one fasting period of 36 hours with one meal (it is like 24h fasting + 12h fasting after that meal).

This stem cell discussion is extremely interesting, but I am wondering if I have now got it all wrong with this one fasting day as it sounds at a first glance that my approach does not trigger it. So, perhaps this approach is just not working at all, and the low IGF1 is not indicative of cell regeneration/protection.

Any thoughts about this?

Thanks!

Best regards, Tobias

Thanks a lot, Jifty! I really rarely visit this forum (which is a shame) – do you have their contact details or official forums?

Got it, Dykask – thanks for your response and I think you are right. On the other hand, I also see my limitations, just like you. I am fortunately not really in a need for stem cell generation – I am more keen to know that what I am doing does have a positive and meaningful impact. I will try to figure out. Clearly, what I do does lower IGF1 levels significantly and this regime (like 600-800 calories as one meal within 36h) has an impact, and I combine this with several minor interventions during the week, like skipping breakfasts on the days I am not running. If I exercise, I really do not dare not eat right after it; that does not seem healthy. I just came under the impression that lower IGF1 is just a part of the puzzle and that the other parameter is really time, i.e. that the lower IGF1 level itself does not lead anywhere if it is not combined with a longer fasting, of minimum two days.

Reality is, I just do not see myself doing that. One day per week works fantastically well for me and is a piece of cake in comparison with 5:2 for me. Also, skipping a meal here and there is a non-issue, so hopefully I have a regime that works for me. I just want to figure out if it is really effective and has a meaningful impact.

I think there is an element of “placebo” to some extent, but I really think that my short-time memory has immensely improved under this scheme, so I think the benefit is there. Clearly, my physiology resembles that of a lean muscle mass that they talk about, it is excellent for weight maintenance and IGF1 levels and my cholesterol level that was always a bit too high despite not being overweight are kept in check – so it is worth it anyway! I am just trying to figure out if I can adjust the scheme to make it more optimal.

Dykask, from what I understand from Valter Longo in a recent video available on Youtube, a longer fasting (5 days, I think) had a positive impact for like 6 months in the case of MS patients, which is nothing short of remarkable. Obviously there the case is about knocking out the “sick” immune system cells which cause the auto-immune disease and replace them with healthy ones. So if you do it like twice per year, it really does sound as though you will have substantial health benefits from it. Good luck with your fasting!

Hi,

I’ve been 5:2 for just over four years, losing 102# in the process, and also reversing my absolutely horrid blood chemistry, which is now properly balanced between HDL, LDL, Triglycerides and fasting blood sugar … Top that off with a return to normal blood pressure without medicine, and you can say I have benefited greatly from this lifestyle …

5:2 IF has essentially saved my life, and I am so thankful for that documentary by Dr. Mosley … I believe I would have never been able to restore my health in any better way.

I have also been fascinated by the new science regarding fasting and cellular regeneration … The balance between Insulin and Glucagon, the Autophagy process, (and Mitophagy as applied to Mitochondria specific cells) …

These are all new terms to me, but I can now see that intermittent fasting does in fact stimulate stem cell activity, and not just those that reproduce immune cells, but that the same repair process affects all stem cells, which means that all tissues experience higher cellular repair activities when in the fasting state.

The story about the three day fast that stimulates complete immune system regeneration was also published by The Telegraph in 2014 (I just found it recently – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/fasting-for-three-days-can-regenerate-entire-immune-system-study/) …

While it might be true that a 72 hour fast restores 100% of the immune system, I do believe that shorter fasts also engage in the same process, and still have beneficial, regenerative effects, but simply to a lesser degree …

In other words, that a 24 hour fast would regenerate 33% of the immune system, not 100% as in the 72 hour fast. I believe that it’s the fact that the body is in the fasted state, with low Insulin and high Glucagon levels present in the blood stream … That once the body is in the fasted state, it begins to accelerate cellular regeneration, through low level autophagic/mitophagic activity, and that it simply takes three days of that activity to restore 100% of immune cells … Two days would restore 66%, one day would restore 33%, etc …

Taking that one step further – 12 hours in a fasted state would restore 16.5% … 6 hours = 8.25%, etc … So, I believe that being in the fasted state, with low blood sugar, low Insulin and high Glucagon, allows for that low level process to start, and that the number of cells involved increase in correlation to the amount of time in the fasted state …

In short, once cellular regeneration begins, it works slowly but inexorably, cell by cell, using autophagic/mitophagic rebuilding processes. 72 hours gets you 100% immune system regeneration, and 48 hours gets you 66%, etc.

If you accumulate 72 hours total time in the fasted state, you will regenerate 100% of the body’s immune cells, whether in one long fast or in several shorter fasts.

Furthermore, I an seeing scientific studies that show this regenerative activity is not limited to immune cells, but to EVERY tissue …

Autophagy affects all tissues, as part of the body’s overall homeostatic control system … It is an autonomous biological process that only occurs in the absence of insulin in the blood stream. When it occurs, it occurs in every tissue, not just immune cells … There is no reason to believe that this critical stem cell process is limited to one type of stem cell. Stem cells control most all of the cells of your body tissues, and the mechanisms at the cellular level are the same for each type.

I have more stuff to share with this group – it’s a fascinating subject area to me, and, just hitting sixty years old, it’s the reason I will continue to fast after I reach my ideal weight.

More coming …

And this is why I mention that ALL stem cell types are affected or stimulated through fasting, just as those that produce immune cells are induced to produce …

This article is titled, “Autophagy in Stem Cells”: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3672294/

(It’s a challenging read for a non-microbiologist …)

“Autophagy is a highly conserved cellular process by which cytoplasmic components are sequestered in autophagosomes and delivered to lysosomes for degradation. As a major intracellular degradation and recycling pathway, autophagy is crucial for maintaining cellular homeostasis as well as remodeling during normal development, and dysfunctions in autophagy have been associated with a variety of pathologies including cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and neurodegenerative disease. Stem cells are unique in their ability to self-renew and differentiate into various cells in the body, which are important in development, tissue renewal and a range of disease processes. Therefore, it is predicted that autophagy would be crucial for the quality control mechanisms and maintenance of cellular homeostasis in various stem cells given their relatively long life in the organisms”

This implies that autophagic activities affect other stem cell types using a more or less universal process that affects each type in a similar manner, which is to stimulate repair of degraded cellular material, including tissue cells and mitochondria (which provide energy to your cells) …

Hello Tobias,

Before I saw Dr. Mosley’s landmark documentary, Eat, Fast and Live Longer, I was 115# overweight, with a BMI of 42, too much bad cholesterol, too little good cholesterol, triglyceride levels that suddenly jumped from the 60’s to above 400!

I was miserable … I was desperate … I needed to do something to save my life … Before I saw that documentary, I was nearly hopeless …

I actually started following the Esselstyn diet at first, but there was no provision for weight loss in that diet – it’s main purpose was to reverse heart disease (a worthy goal), and I was able to change my approach in meal preparation, and focus on veggies, whole grains and fruits as regular staples …

I felt better, yes, but I wasn’t losing any weight, which was a critical aspect of my situation …

Watching the documentary opened my eyes to the benefits of fasting, and I could then understand that, through fasting, I would not only lose fat weight, but that my blood chemistry would improve as well …it’s exactly what I needed to resolve my set of symptoms.

I started in earnest, and within two months I had lost about 40# … There is nothing more inspiring than success … It took about two years total to lose 90% of my excess weight, and I’ve spent the last two years chipping away at the remaining ten percent while also starting a muscle development/strength training program – when the fat disappeared from my arms and legs, I realized my skeletal muscles had atrophied severely – this is what happens when you are lazy for decades in end … My arms were all fat with little lean muscle mass. When the fat was gone, I had puny muscles and bone … Since muscle tissues are a primary user of caloric intake, it became very important to rebuild my musculature, and restore a normal metabolism (more muscle mass = higher metabolism)

Now, as I look at the end game and ask myself how I intend to play out the final steps as I approach my target weight (6# to go), I’ve begun to dig deeper into the health benefits of fasting, and that’s what brought me here …

I’m learning slowly, but I’m pretty sure I will be fasting the rest of my life …

Hi,

it is really quite an achievement! Well done. It appears you did not really hit any plateau, did you? Which in itself also would be an interesting thing as it seems to impact many people on any diet, including this one. What I have noted is that at least my body needs a shock to the system once in a while for things to move. It is more of self-experimenting, I guess, so should be done with a great deal of care, but when I was diagnosed with gluten intolerance, for instance, and I had to change my diet (like bread out, more nuts in) my weight dropped dramatically. But then it caught up again (which was good as I was rather 68 than 70 kg at some point which was just too low for me to feel comfortable with). I am trying some minor changes alongside my rather intense training sessions and this seems to have very quickly impacted my body fat. I suspect though that my body will accommodate at some point. Conversely, when for a month I could not run at all but kept my diet regime and everything else I do, my bloods were not that good. I am now back in the good old regime again, so I really hope that those bloods were just a “blip” on the radar. I am just relating to what you say about lean muscles – I think you need to find new triggers from time to time to expose your body to (within limits, of course) challenges it needs to cope with. Building muscles to impact the amount of calories your body needs to burn to stay functioning is one of them, I guess.

Good morning,

I completely agree that natural processes are rarely linear – more likely there is a slow curve involved as a process ramps up, and lingers as the process completes …

Also, when I speak of time frames, I speak of when all digestion completes, some hours after a last meal, when blood glucose finally drops, and insulin drops (and Glucagon rises) in response … We aren’t in the ‘fasted state’ until then …

I think my point is: One needn’t go the full 72 hour route, and that one could benefit from shorter fasts, but just to a smaller degree.

Those of us focused on the long term, as I am, will still eventually restore that immune system, but in due time …

This is a fascinating subject area … I love this stuff …

Back on the topic …

I agree that one doesn’t have to fast a full 72 hours to see benefits. I just think that in a 24 hour fast or even 36 hour fast autophagy is much of a factor.

The first 24 hours the body is just moving into the fasted state, so likely almost no autophagy occurs. However one would see drops in Insulin and IFG. There should also be increases in HGH and Glucagon. That sets the body up for more lipolysis and improving insulin sensitivity.

Past the first 24 hours, autophagy likely starts as the body has stress to produce enough glucose for the body as typically there isn’t enough ketones for fuel.

I have to wonder if being in ketosis would actually work against autophagy?

… and just like Gregory, I stumbled across “Eat, fast and live longer” and it just changed my understanding of how I live my life…