Modified alternate-day fasting is tested to extend lifespan.
Is it true that calorie restriction on alternate days prolong life? Doctors have anecdotally attributed improvements in a variety of illnesses to alternate-day fasting, including asthma; seasonal allergies; autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis; infectious diseases, such as toenail fungus, periodontal disease, and viral upper respiratory tract infections; neurological conditions, such as Tourette syndrome and Meniere’s disease; atrial fibrillation; and menopause-related hot flashes. However, the real effect on chronic diseases remains unclear, as I analyze in my video Does intermittent fasting increase human life expectancy?.
Alternate-day fasting has been tested for asthma in overweight adults, and researchers found that asthma-related symptoms are significantly controlled improved, as well as patients’ quality of life, including objective measurements of lung function and inflammation. As you can see in the graphs below and at 0:56 of my videothere were Significant improvements in peak airflow, mood and energy. His weight also improved (about a 19-pound drop in eight weeks), so it’s difficult to disentangle the specific effects of fasting beyond the benefits we might expect from weight loss either way.
For the most notable study on alternate-day fasting, go to go more than half a century ago. Although the 2017 cholesterol findings were the most worrying data I could find fasting on alternate days, the most tempting thing was published in Spain in 1956. The title of the study translates as “The Alternate Day Hunger Diet in the Nutrition of the Elderly.” Inspired by data being published on life extension with calorie restriction in laboratory rats, researchers divided 120 residents of a Madrid nursing home into two groups. Sixty residents continued their usual diet and the other half undertook a modified alternate-day fast. On odd days of the month, they ate a normal 2,300-calorie diet; On even days they were only given half a kilo of fresh fruit and a liter of milk, My dear to add up to approximately 900 calories. This continued for three years. So what happened?
As you can see below and at minute 2:16 in my videoThroughout the study, 13 participants deceased in the control group, compared to just 6 in the intermittent fasting group, but those numbers were too small to be statistically significant.
What was very significant was the number of days they spent hospitalized: the residents in the control group spent a total of 219 days in the infirmary, while the alternate-day fasting group only recorded 123 days, as can be seen below. below and at 2:38 in my video.
This is considered strong evidence that alternate day fasting can improve a person’s life expectancy, but some caveats should be considered. It is unclear how the residents were doing. assigned to their respective groups. If, instead of being randomly assigned, healthier individuals were inadvertently placed in the intermittent fasting group, that could skew the results in their favor. Additionally, it appears that the study director was also in charge of medical decisions at the nursing home. In that role, he might have unconsciously been predisposed to hospitalize more people in the control group. Given the progress that has been made in regulating human experimentation, it is difficult to imagine such a trial being conducted today, so we may never know whether such impressive findings can be replicated.
Well, that was interesting! I hadn’t even heard of that study until I started digging deeper into the topic.
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