WHY THERAPEUTIC FASTING could be the answer to ‘lifestyle diseases’ like obesity.

As medical director of the renowned Buchinger Wilhelmi Clinic in Germany, [Françoise Wilhelmi de Toledo] is an authority on therapeutic fasting and responsible at least in part for the current interest in its role in the management of chronic diseases including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and cancer. And, of course, as a means of weight control . . .

She says there is strong evidence gathered over many decades to show how it can lower blood pressure, reduce excess fat and glucose in the blood, modulate the immune system, increase the effect of the mood and sleep-regulating neuro-transmitter serotonin, boost protein repair, and reduce inflammation.

Fasting has been likened to a “reset” button that returns the human body to its (healthy) factory settings. A study published last year by Prof. Longo’s team at USC, drawing on animal and human trials, concluded that three days of fasting can rejuvenate the immune system, triggering the production of new white blood cells. Other studies show that fasting can enable healthy cells to endure better the toxic impact of chemotherapy while cancer cells die more rapidly. It is a fascinating area of research that draws on the body’s evolutionary adaptation.

“Human beings are not programmed for abundance,” Dr. Wilhelmi de Toledo says. “Humans are programmed for loss.” The capacity to fast derives from periods when our ancestors ate more than they needed and built up fat reserves and surplus nutrients, such as vitamins and minerals, in summer and autumn. In winter and spring, when access to food was much reduced, they endured periods of fasting in which their metabolism switched automatically from “external nutrition to nutrition taken from fat reserves.”

Earlier: Fasting triggers stem cell regeneration of damaged, old immune system. (about the research by Longo linked above)