People who want to be healthy and look young could find these effects in intermittent fasting. There's more evidence that this type of occasional fasting have weight loss and anti-aging benefits. Actually, just eating very lightly can make you avoid diseases and keep those wrinkles at bay.
According to new studies, people who ate a special low-calorie diet for five days in a month lost weight, have lower cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and body fat measurements. On average, dieters shed off around five pounds after three months on the diet, and appear to have better control of blood sugar, which lowers their risk for diabetes. In addition, they have been found to have less evidence of inflammation, which is an important precursor for cancer, heart disease and obesity.
The intermittent fasting diet is actually called a fasting-mimicking diet based on a specific product line that provides 750-1,100 calories a day from small size nourishment such as food bars, soup packets and teas. Victor Longo and colleagues at USC’s Longevity Institute published the study in the journal Science Translation Medicine. He explains that the diet cycles reduced body weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, and body fat, and has no serious adverse effects, the Today reports.
Another study, which focuses on the diet's anti-aging effects, says that they have observed one monkey display a longer life span than usual after subjecting it to the diet. The primate was started on a 30 percent calorie restriction diet at 16 years old, which is equivalent to late middle age for this type of animal. Now, at 43, the monkey has broken the longevity record for the species, which is roughly the equivalent to 130 in human years, the Scientific American reports.
Studies have shown repeatedly that intermittent fasting, or eating just a little can significantly lengthen life span. However, subjects of these studies have been nematodes or primates. Published this week in Science Translational Medicine, another research suggests it is possible that these results in animals can translate well to humans, with just five days a month fasting for three months in repeated intervals, the results could be effective in reducing risk factors for aging and age-related diseases.
