FASTING Cleans The Brain. [archive]

Fasting intermittently strongly increases autophagy. In normal animals including humans, going without food for a few hours increases this process; in aging animals, longer periods of fasting may be necessary.

While the effect of fasting on the liver, muscles, and other organs has been well-known, until recently it was thought that this did not occur in the brain.

But scientists have recently shown that short-term fasting induces profound neuronal autophagy. [PDF] Mice that were fasted for 24 hours showed an increase in autophagy in the brain, and this effect increased after 48 hours of fasting.