Intermittent Fasting Blog

After one month trying out Intermittent Fasting, my wife and I have been so delighted with the results that I’ve decided to devote another blog entirely to that subject: Our Longevity Blog. There you will find a detailed discussion of our experiences. We are losing weight, we feel healthier and the diet is not at all difficult. I expect to continue intermittent fasting for the rest of my life, so long as I don’t develop any diseases that contra-indicates it, such as diabetes. The beauty of it is, research suggests that this diet itself will help prevent adult-onset diabetes, as well as lower our risks from cancer and other deadly diseases.

And it is much easier than I expected. The word ‘fasting’ brings up images of near-starvation and hunger pains, but really, the way we time it, it is not difficult at all. As I described earlier, we are essentially fasting alternate nights, and the following morning — so we fast part of each day. We also eat two meals every day, one large meal and one small meal or snack. And since the fast begins right after the main meal of the day, we begin our fasts with full stomachs. By bed-time I’m a little hungry, but not too much. Then eight hours asleep I don’t even notice I’m fasting. The next morning it is only about five hours from when I get up before I start eating again, and while I’m hungry during those hours, it is not an extreme hunger — it’s just like I normally feel just before dinner time. I have plenty of energy, and often spend an hour walking the three mile round-trip to town and back. The fact that I’m fasting has no effect on my activity levels.

Is a Parkinson’s Cure in Sight?

A new report explains that improvements in neurological functioning have been stimulated in mice with Parkinson’s-like symptoms through the use of therapeutic cloning. Unlike the more controversial reproductive cloning, which aims to produce a complete living organism, therapeutic cloning aims to produce specific healthy cell types that can then be re-introduced to the host to replace diseased cells. Because the cloned cells are genetically identical to the host, they are not destroyed by the immune response.

With mice, at least, this technique has now been demonstrated to be an effective treatment for the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Transferring such technology from rodents to humans is not always easy or inevitable — we are not rodents, however much some folks seem to invite the comparison — so it is too early to say this will work with humans, but it is hopeful.

This brings us to the question of what should be done next. The process is not ready for use on humans, and it would be unethical to begin experimenting on people at this stage. But mice are too far removed from humans to provide satisfactory evidence that the process is safe and effective. Obviously, we need to try this on chimps, or other primates before it is used on humans. But animal activists will cry that it is animal abuse and unethical to use these highly developed simian species for laboratory experiments. If it were a question of trying out the latest cosmetic invention or some behavioral study, I would agree — but with something as important as the potential cure of Parkinson’s Disease, I think it would be unethical NOT to use primates in these experiments. We need to treat animals as ethically as possible — but NOT to the detriment of humans!

Intermittent Fasting — Two Week Report

Well, as I posted a couple weeks ago, my wife and I have been fasting — basically half of every day, rather than every-other day. But the two half-day fasts follow on one another, making it 24 hours (theoretically) out of each 48. But in practice we may only fast something between 23 and 24 hours, since we have our main meal the same time every day — between 2 and 3 pm.

My wife hasn’t weighed herself, but I have — so I’ll report my results here. I lost 1.3 kilos (almost 3 pounds) over the past two weeks. This amazes me, since I have made no conscious effort to cut down on my food; I feel like I’m eating normally. Yesterday’s dinner was a big plate of spaghetti with meat sauce, then a night-time snack of a grilled cheese sandwich, and pancakes for breakfast today. This afternoon I’ll have a couple glasses of wine and pork-roast in mustard sauce. Then we won’t eat again until comida (dinner)  tomorrow, between 2 and 3 pm again.

I have had no problem holding to this diet, and can see it becoming a permanent life-style choice if it gets me down to a better weight. I feel a bit hungry during the fasting period, but don’t feel week or experience other problems from lack of food. I drink plenty of water, and in the morning two cups of coffee with no milk or sugar. On the alternate non-fasting morning I make the coffee a bit stronger, and use one teaspoon of sugar in each cup.

Of course just two weeks is not enough to judge anything, but I am encouraged. Most diets cause weight-loss at the beginning, then stop working, and this could have a similar effect. I’m not sure it matters — if I feel healthier I’ll stick to it, if not I’ll look for something else to try.

College Educated Live Longer

In a surprising analysis of longevity, researchers have found that life span is no longer lengthening for people with 12 or fewer years of education, while those with some college are living longer. The economic link with longevity (rich folk live longer) has long been know. There is some link between higher education and greater income, though not so strong as one might expect. Now they observe that educated folks are living longer than comparable groups did years ago, but those with less education are staying about the same, or even declining in longevity compared to earlier generations.

The report offers no clear explanation for this phenomena — do educated people live longer because they heed the advice of the medical experts in health matters? Or is it because they are more likely to question their doctor’s decisions? My guess would be the latter; the better educated you are, the more you realize that doctors are not the infallible gods they pretend to be. Huge numbers of people die from adverse reactions to prescribed medicines, which they continue to take even when it makes them feel worse. Until that far-distant day when individual medicines are designed to complement your personal genetic make-up, it is healthier to replace blind faith in doctors with skepticism and questioning. I don’t doubt they try their best, but they are, after all, only human.

Intermittent Fasting Experiment

There have been several studies with animals that show intermittent fasting — feeding the animal every other day instead of daily — can increase longevity and improve general health. Limited studies have also been done with humans, but nothing very long-term and usually with only a small number of subjects. The results from those have been mixed, some showing some health benefits, others indicating some problems with blood-sugar regulation. Of course none of the human studies have even looked at longevity, that just takes too long with people.

Encouraged by the animal studies, and suspicious of the study-design in the human experiments, my wife and I have decided to try an alternating 24 hour fast, 24 hour feed schedule. Like many others who have tried this, our plan is to eat every day, but time meals so that there is a 24 hour fast from the end of one day to the beginning of the next.

Most people who have reported trying this eat the typical American three meals of breakfast – lunch – dinner, so they eat dinner every day, and skip breakfast and lunch on alternate days. We live in Mexico, where the largest meal of the day is traditionally eaten in early afternoon — comida –  so we eat breakfast around 9:00 am, the main meal between 2:00 and 3:00 pm, then a light snack about 10:00 pm. That light snack might be as large as a sandwich if we are unusually hungry, but more typically is two tacos, or a shared bowl of popcorn.

So for our fast, we eat the main meal every day, just as in the American examples, but we also get a second meal — either breakfast or the night-time snack, but never both. Thus, we fast from the end of our main meal one day, until the main meal the next day, then eat a night-time snack that night. The next day we start with breakfast, then comida and start another 24 hour fast.

We just began this regime March 4, 2008, so we have only had one fast so far — but I found it no problem at all. My wife reported a slight headache that may or may-not have been due to the fast. We both weighed ourselves, and will see if we lose any weight — I am 190 cm tall and weigh 99.1 kg. My wife’s weight is a well-guarded secret!  We will report here our progress in the coming weeks.