Is Intermittent Fasting Truly For Everyone?
The fasting method not just helps in losing weight, but can improve the gut microbiome, insulin efficiency and mental acuity. But can everyone do it? For probably the first time in the history of diets — from the vinegar and biscuits ‘bamming’ of the Regency era to the modern paleo and keto diets — one diet type has got an overwhelmingly positive nod from nutritionists and doctors. They may disagree on the finer points of how one practises it, but experts across the panel largely agree that periodic fasting is good for the human mind and body, and positively impacts a large number of functions, from enhancing the diversity and health of the gut microbiome to increasing insulin efficiency in the body and kickstarting a sluggish metabolism.
And this is not alternative medicine mumbo-jumbo—animal studies and human clinical trials across the world have shown the mechanism of many of these actions. A 2020 review conducted by the US National Institute on Ageing and published in the New England Journal of Medicine says that “evidence from decades of animal and human research points to wide-ranging health benefits of intermittent fasting. Evidence is accumulating that eating in a 6-hour period and fasting for 18 hours can trigger a metabolic switch from glucose-based to ketone-based energy, with increased stress resistance, increased longevity, and a decreased incidence of diseases, including cancer and obesity,” say the authors of the paper.
Excerpted from Mint
