Intermittent Fasting And Other Types Of Fasting: All The Benefits

Fasting, practiced periodically, helps increase energy and mental clarity and promotes hormonal balance.

There are many ways to fast. Some of the most common are:

• Short fast of 24-48 hours. It is the one that is carried out in health or retirement centers and consists of taking infusions and water during these hours. In some centers they offer broths and vegetable juices. Requires supervision of health professionals.
• Intermittent fasting 16/8. It consists of not eating for 16 hours (including sleeping) and taking ingestions within an 8-hour window (between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m., for example). It’s an easy way to get most of the benefits of fasting, and it reduces your calorie intake as well. Intermittent fasting is a more manageable and accessible strategy than prolonged fasting.

The health benefits of fasting

Among the benefits of fasting it has been proven that it can:

• Reduce low-grade inflammation.
• Reduce oxidative stress.
• Improve insulin sensitivity and help control sugar.
• Decrease other markers of metabolic syndrome.
• Protect against neurodegenerative diseases.
• Contribute to a strong and healthy metabolism.

How fasting helps you

Four main mechanisms are known to explain why fasting is beneficial :

1. Reduces oxidative stress by reducing the accumulation of free radicals in the cell.
2. Increases insulin sensitivity and improves mitochondrial efficiency (the powerhouse of the cell), delaying aging and disease.
3. Increases the ability to resist stress. Cells especially benefit from a decrease in blood glucose (glycemia) and also from a reduction in a hormone: insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1).
4. It stimulates autophagy, a process by which cells recycle waste materials, avoid waste, and repair themselves. This process is crucial in immunity and inflammation, so it can protect against infectious, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. This helps maintain homeostasis (balance) in the body.