[oyster]

thats intermittant fasting, anyone tried it? eating every other day, sounds difficult and uncomfortable, but i wouldn't realyy know having nver done it. there is definitly studies supporting its potential. ctena, this sounds like something you might have treid?

[lou_lou]

I have a problem fasting - it is my hypoglycemia -low blood sugar...

so I cant do a very strict fast -however
fasting is one of the oldest therapies in medicine.

Many of the great doctors of ancient times and many of the oldest healing systems have recommended it as an integral method of healing and prevention.

Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, believed fasting enabled the body to heal itself.

Paracelsus, another great healer in the Western tradition, wrote 500 years ago that "fasting is the greatest remedy, the physician within.

" Ayurvedic medicine, the world's oldest healing system, has long advocated fasting as a major treatment.

Fasting has also been used in nearly every religion in the world, including Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam.

not familiar dear one ~
is it called -" IF"?
but I would like to know about it!!
please tell me about it!
thank you!
dear oyster!

[reverett123]

The best news is that on alternate days you can stuff your little self and still get the benefits. That's right - a license to pig out! Now that's medicine!

[oyster]

there is some info on fasting in the sticky; possible treatments. i have also reaad some elsewhere on the internet while surfing for for effective pd therapies, i dont have any idea where that was.


i,ld like to try it. i'm not sure when, ihave to drive all day tomorrow so maybe thursday. its a little scary but i guess if it gets bad i can always eat a sandwich or such.

thanks for being so freindly, ctena.

[vlhperry]

Be sure to check with your doctor before making any major changes in your diet. I recently found out I am pre-diabetic. For me, I should eat small meals several time during the day. I keep easy snacks such as nuts, raisons, flavored, high fiber crackers, fresh fruit, and veggies. Was a vegetarion of necessity when I lived alone, couldn't afford meat. Lived off cereal and rice with vegetables. Was in the best condition of my life as I also couldn't afford a TV so spent a great deal of free time walking.

Eating one day, and fasting the next will mess with your bodies metabolism. Starvation one day forcing the metabolism to slow down, and overeating the next day will force the body to conserve as much calories as possible to have fuel for the fasting day. Doesn't sound like a life style a person could stick to for life. Consider living as if you were poor and couldn't afford much food. It is a line of line of thinking that will create a new lifestyle, not a diet.

Just a suggestion, except please do consult with your Doctor before making a significant change in your nutritional habits.

Vicky

[reverett123]

Over abundance of food and the wrong types is one of our big health problems. We evolved in an environment where we were the top predators and food came in big packages but not every day. We'd get up. The males would grumble about having leaves for breakfast. The females, who had gathered the vitamin-rich leaves, would tell them where to get off and chase them away. The males would come back later dragging some hapless mastodon, throw it down, and say "We caught, you clean it." and everyone would pig out. The next mornng would be leftovers but by the next it was leaves again and the cycle repeated.

This cycle left time for the body to do housekeeping and flush out wastes among other things. One does need to take into account your health and energy needs and gender, but in general, the less you eat the better off you are.

1: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2004 Dec 28;101(52):18171-6. Epub 2004 Dec 16.

Comment in:
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Dec 28;101(52):17887-8.

Caloric restriction increases neurotrophic factor levels and attenuates
neurochemical and behavioral deficits in a primate model of Parkinson's disease.

Maswood N, Young J, Tilmont E, Zhang Z, Gash DM, Gerhardt GA, Grondin R, Roth GS,
Mattison J, Lane MA, Carson RE, Cohen RM, Mouton PR, Quigley C, Mattson MP,
Ingram DK.

Laboratory of Neurosciences, National Institute on Aging Intramural Research
Program, 5600 Nathan Shock Drive, Baltimore, MD 21224, USA.

We report that a low-calorie diet can lessen the severity of neurochemical
deficits and motor dysfunction in a primate model of Parkinson's disease. Adult
male rhesus monkeys were maintained for 6 months on a reduced-calorie diet [30%
caloric restriction (CR)] or an ad libitum control diet after which they were
subjected to treatment with a neurotoxin to produce a hemiparkinson condition.
After neurotoxin treatment, CR monkeys exhibited significantly higher levels of
locomotor activity compared with control monkeys as well as higher levels of
dopamine (DA) and DA metabolites in the striatal region. Increased survival of DA
neurons in the substantia nigra and improved manual dexterity were noted but did
not reach statistical significance. Levels of glial cell line-derived
neurotrophic factor, which is known to promote the survival of DA neurons, were
increased significantly in the caudate nucleus of CR monkeys, suggesting a role
for glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor in the anti-Parkinson's disease
effect of the low-calorie diet.

Publication Types:
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

PMID: 15604149 [Pubmed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[rosebud]

I am a convert of fasting...there are several variations. Personally the fast/glut option mentioned at the beginning is not in my humble opinion one of the better choices. What works well for me (who also has pre diabetic issues like Vicky) is to fast two meals once or twice a month. I always make sure I've eaten well enough in the previous days so as not to throw my system into shock. doesn't sound like much but you will be amazed at how in can give you a boost!!

[ZucchiniFlower]

My friend, a doctor, has parents who are doctors, too. After they prepped for a colonoscopy, they liked how they felt, so they started fasting and lost alot of weight and felt fine. I wish I knew the details of what they did. I think they did drink fruits and veggies.

This article is interesting and I'm posting some of it in case it's not freely available:

Intermittent fasting dissociates beneficial effects of dietary restriction on glucose metabolism and neuronal resistance to injury from calorie intake

Published online before print April 30, 2003, 10.1073/pnas.1035720100
PNAS | May 13, 2003 | vol. 100 | no. 10 | 6216-6220

R. Michael Anson*,dagger, Zhihong Guo*, Rafael de Cabo, Titilola Iyun, Michelle Rios, Adrienne Hagepanos, Donald K. Ingram, Mark A. LaneDagger, and Mark P. Mattson§

ABSTRACT:

Dietary restriction has been shown to have several health benefits including increased insulin sensitivity, stress resistance, reduced morbidity, and increased life span. The mechanism remains unknown, but the need for a long-term reduction in caloric intake to achieve these benefits has been assumed. We report that when C57BL/6 mice are maintained on an intermittent fasting (alternate-day fasting) dietary-restriction regimen their overall food intake is not decreased and their body weight is maintained. Nevertheless, intermittent fasting resulted in beneficial effects that met or exceeded those of caloric restriction including reduced serum glucose and insulin levels and increased resistance of neurons in the brain to excitotoxic stress. Intermittent fasting therefore has beneficial effects on glucose regulation and neuronal resistance to injury in these mice that are independent of caloric intake.

INTRODUCTION:

Aging refers to the biological changes that occur during a lifetime that result in reduced resistance to stress, increased vulnerability to disease, and an increased probability of death. The rate at which aging occurs is species-specific, suggesting a strong genetic influence.

The only environmental variable that has been shown to markedly affect the rate of aging in a wide range of species is caloric intake: Restricting food intake to a level below that which would be consumed voluntarily results in a decrease in the rate of aging and an increase in average and maximum life span (1, 2). Dietary restriction (DR) reduces cancer formation (3, 4) and kidney disease (5) and increases the resistance of neurons to dysfunction and degeneration in experimental models of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases as well as stroke (6-9). Two different DR paradigms have proven effective in increasing life span and disease resistance in rats and mice. In one paradigm animals are provided a daily food allotment that is typically 30-40% less than the ad libitum (AL) consumption of a control population; this limited daily feeding (LDF) paradigm involves a controlled caloric restriction and a corresponding reduction in body weight. In the second paradigm animals are subjected to intermittent (alternate-day) fasting (IF), which in rats results in reduced food intake over time and decreased body weight (10).

Restricting caloric intake causes the restricted population to weigh proportionally less than the AL-fed group. Indeed, weight reduction typically slightly exceeds the degree of food restriction, so that food intake per gram of body weight is reported consistently to be slightly higher in LDF animals than in their AL-fed counterparts (11).

Rats and mice usually lose weight when maintained on an IF regimen, although some strains such as C57BL/6 mice may lose little or no weight (12). Both the IF and LDF paradigms are reported to result in dramatic increases in life span in comparison to AL-fed animals (13), but little else is known concerning the similarities and differences in their effects.

It seems reasonable to assume that both LDF and IF paradigms of DR extend life span through a common mechanism.

To gain insight into the nature of the underlying mechanism, we compared the effects of LDF and IF diets on several parameters that have been postulated to play a role in the protective effects of DR including body weight, food intake, and fasting levels of serum insulin, glucose, and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1).

In addition, recent studies have shown that rats and mice maintained on an IF regimen exhibit increased resistance of neurons in their brains to insults relevant to the pathogenesis of several different human neurological disorders including epileptic seizures and stroke (6, 8, 14). We therefore performed an experiment to determine whether LDF and IF diets exert similar beneficial effects on neurons in the brain.

....."Recent findings suggest that many of the beneficial effects of IF may result from a cellular stress response induced by the fasted state. For example, it was shown that levels of stress protein chaperones (8, 34) and neurotrophic factors (35) are increased in rats and mice maintained on an IF-feeding regimen. The superior neuroprotective efficacy of IF compared with LDF feeding documented in this study is consistent with enhancement of cellular stress resistance that results from the stress associated with fasting rather than an overall reduction in caloric intake."

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/100/10/6216#SEC2

I'll post more later. Have to leave now.