The Benefits of Fasting

What is Fasting?

Though fasting has been practiced in many ancient contents for both health/medical and religious reasons, it has made a comeback into the mainstream as a “health hack” of sorts.

Typically, fasting refers to abstaining from food/caloric sources for a period of time. The National Library of Medicine defines fasting as “a period of voluntary abstinence from food and drink, usually longer than the physiological overnight fast.” They also make an important distinction that “it is different from calorie restriction (CR), in which the daily caloric intake is decreased by 20–40% for a long period of time.”

Types of Fasting

Just hearing the word fasting can bring up certain memories, rituals, or contexts for each of us, individually. Whatever you think of, know that in the literature, fasting is conveniently subdivided into three categories (depending on the time schedule): alternate-day fasting, time-restricted feeding, and whole-day fasts. (2)

A Brief Nod to the History of Fasting

Fasting in history was practiced in ancient cultures in Greece, Egypt, India, to name a few. And, the intensity and devotion to it varies. (1, 2) “Father of Medicine” Hippocrates even used fasting as an aspect of his healing methodology and protocols.

Here’s an example of ancient fasting: a Buddhist monk in Japan fasted for 7 days at the end of a thousand-day walk through the mountains from Hieizan to the old Imperial Palace in Kyoto. Additionally, other cultures practice fasts for shorter periods of time, such as hours, days, or parts of days. (1, 2)

Is Fasting Legit?

Just like with any “biohack”, it’s crucial to evaluate its validity & relevance - and determine if it makes sense to integrate into your life. In the instance of fasting, it can absolutely have powerful use in your life, but context and personalization matters.

Too, fasting is an example of a popularized, modern “hack” that actually has ancient roots. In other words, it’s not new for humans to practice it. And, it boasts many benefits that the mainstream hype around fasting leaves out.

Outside of personal or religious contexts, fasting can be practiced for optimal health. Some commony touted benefits from fasting include relief from indigestion and weight loss. This post will largely be based on fasting for the aim of health-related goals.

Highlighting a few Benefits of Fasting

Fasting in an appropriate way for you and your biology (circadian fasting) offers a host of benefits:

-Metabolic shift & weight loss

-Reduced blood pressure

-Improves cardiometabolic health

-Decreased inflammatory levels

-Improvement in pathways such as lipolysis & autophagy

Still skeptical about fasting? Consider this from a 2022 article: “The manipulation of dietary intake, in the form of calorie restriction, intermittent fasting, dietary restriction with exclusion of some nutrients, prolonged fasting and so forth, is anthropologically engraved in human culture possibly because of its positive health effects.” (2)

Ideal Timeframe for Fasting

In modern contexts, most of us are interested in and curious about fasting for the purposeful of improving health, feeling better, improving longevity, and for some - losing weight. Through this lens, the most beneficial way to practice fasting is by honoring our diurnal nature as humans. In other words, it’s best for our biology that we honor light and dark cycles in our fasting practices.

This will not perhaps be the most surprising, but it’s important to understand the why. The literature shows that fasting when the sun is down and overnight is important and has implications for sleep quality, which has downstream systemic impacts on hormonal patterns, ability to lose weight, etc. (3, 6)

Circadian Fasting

According to Dr. Carrie Bennett, circadian fasting is best, especially for weight loss, because fat is an endocrine organ. This means it secretes hormones & chemicals and also - plays an important role in energy homeostasis (i.e. releasing leptin). She says “To facilitate fat burning, we can utilize "circadian fasting" which looks different from typical intermittent fasting. And there are side benefits of syncing circadian signaling, supporting nervous system regulation, balancing hormones, enhancing autophagy, healing the gut lining and lowering evening appetite.” (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)

Circadian fasting makes sense for humans for many reasons, as mentioned above. However, there is some fine tweaking we can do to the mainstream advice on skipping breakfast. This will be especially valuable for those who has previously tried fasting and didn’t feel like it was right for them or didn’t provide the results they desired. (15)

Skipping Breakfast or Skipping Dinner?

Many seem to begin fasting with what’s commonly called intermittent fasting (or time-restricted eating) - and many proponents of this skip breakfast to build out their fasting window. However, this is not ideal thru the lens of hormones (influenced by light), and is why many humans (especially women) fail to do fasting long term.

To better understand this, think about the wake response hormone cortisol. Cortisol is meant to peak in the morning and diminish throughout the day, making “room” for melatonin production and utilization to take place. Thus, when we skip breakfast, we are disharmoniously interacting with that natural cortisol peak. This is because cortisol increases when we eat. Importantly, this is not a “bad” response, it’s simply innate to your physiology. (3, 4, 5)

Additionally, a 2017 study in the National Library of Medicine declares that “skipping breakfast has been associated with markers of impaired glucose metabolism, including elevated hemoglobin A1c, higher fasting plasma glucose and all-day postprandial hyperglycemia and a higher rate of impaired fasting glucose.” (16)

Healing the Gut with Circadian Fasting

Many adopt a “gut-healing” protocol, yet completely overlook the implications of our built-in circadian clock, intrinsically influenced by light and the rhythms of day and night. (13) “We are designed to make an entirely new gut lining every 2-5 days. That only happens when we have our circadian rhythm synced to the day/night cycles of our local environment. Cell division, needed for repair of "leaky gut," occurs at night in the absence of light.” (14)

Optimizing Fasting with Berberine

One of the beneficial aspects of fasting is that it can put the body into a state of ketosis - one in which your body is able to burn fat for fuel (through the utilization of ketones), as well as catch up with your body’s “housework.”

This “housework” is referred to in the literature as apoptosis and autophagy. These are two innate processes that your body carries out in order to phase out unhealthy cells and “take out the trash”, so to speak.

Berberine, found in a functional, bioavailable dose in BerbElite, helps the body to get into this state of ketosis. Additionally, BerbElite supports glucose metabolism, combats inflammation, improves sleep and mood, and enhances gut health.

Furthermore, in a pre-clinical trial that we performed looking at BerbElite - we found that a blood ketone level of 0.5 mmol/L and a glucose of 82 mg/dL can be achieved in 3 hours with two BerbElite capsules.  

Overlooked Benefits of Fasting

A 2020 study on the metabolomics (the study of small molecules called metabolites)(1) of fasting reveals that fasting offers these benefits:

References:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7536077/
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8838777/
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3227713/
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8399962/
5. https://ec.bioscientifica.com/view/journals/ec/12/7/EC-23-0126.xml
6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7763532/
7. https://www.instagram.com/carriebwellness/p/C8CuwQAu9__/?img_index=1
8. https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/could-fasting-reset-bodys-clock-and-protect-brain-against-alzheimers#:~:text=Research%20has%20shown%20that%20time,digestion%2C%20and%20other%20health%20factors.
9. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43444-3#:~:text=On%20the%20other%20hand%2C%20a,%2C20%2C21%2C22.
10. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5388543/
11. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8143522/
12. https://www.ifm.org/news-insights/circadian-fasting-precursors-to-heart-health/
13. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9296773/
14. https://www.instagram.com/carriebwellness/p/C5_TZqZu_P0/
15. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6700786/
16. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8532518/