Is Intermittent Fasting Safe? THIS Will Surprise You

Hello Health Champions! Today I want to talk about fasting. Is intermittent

fasting safe and effective or are there dangers that you should be concerned

with. I'm gonna bring up some of the most common objections and then I'll also

take a look at what the research has to say about that.

Coming right up. Hey I'm Dr. Ekberg. I'm a holistic doctor and a former

Olympic decathlete and if you want to truly master health by understanding how

the body really works make sure you subscribe and hit that notification bell

so you don't miss anything. I'm going to use an article from Web MD to illustrate

some of the most common objections and concerns about fasting and they're

asking in this article two questions one do fasting diets work and two is fasting

safe so unfortunately anytime they ask if something works they're talking about

weight loss which is kind of sad because fasting is about so much more than that

it is very effective for weight loss but that's really the smallest part of it

but here's what they're saying if you're fasting to lose weight you may want to

reconsider the weight loss may not last after you finish fasting so let me get

this straight they're saying that if you do a certain thing you could get a

certain result but then if you stop doing that thing then you may not get

the result anymore that's like saying that you shouldn't water your plants

because your plants are just gonna dry out if you stop watering them and don't

clean your house because it's just gonna get dirty if you stop cleaning it and of

course don't take any more showers because you're just gonna get dirty if

there comes a time where you don't take showers anymore

alright that's ridiculous right but it's all based on this idea of a diet that as

a culture we have this idea that we can do something for a short time and get a

result but what we have to understand that all of this

about incorporating into a lifestyle things that will get the benefits that

we desire and then they add to this and say when you're done fasting and you go

back to your usual diet you may regain the weight you lost and then some .

Of course but the key word here is the usual diet what is the usual diet well

most people think that it's whatever we have been eating for the last few years

that's the normal usual diet but I'd like to make the case that fasting is

the usual diet right fasting not something you do and then you go back to

the usual fasting is the usual diet why because intermittent fasting is what

humans have done for as long as we've been around there's always for all the

animals on the planet there have been times of more food and there's been time

of less food and that's called intermittent fasting it is the most

natural human lifestyle that there is what's really unnatural is to have three

meals a day turn into six meals a day plus snacks we our bodies are not

designed for that we have no defense against that much food I'm sure you've

heard the next objection that your metabolism can slow down they say when

you eat less than you need and you lose weight your body goes into starvation

mode to save energy your metabolism slows down but what we have to

understand is that all the restriction slows down metabolism whether it's

fasting or calorie restriction or low carb or low fat any restriction will

slow metabolism a little bit in the short term but what we're interested in

knowing is what happens in the long term and fasting an intermittent fasting is

the most powerful way to reduce insulin resistance and when we reduce insulin

and insulin resistance we increase the availability of stored

we make more fuel available to metabolize and in doing that we also

reduce leptin resistance which will reduce appetite and cravings it will

help us control our appetite better and fasting will increase growth hormone

which is fat burning and muscle sparing so these three factors all put together

is actually the best way to increase metabolism in the long run it may be the

only way that we can truly restore a healthy metabolism the officially

recommended way which is to eat less and exercise more to have calorie

restriction with frequent meals has been proven over and over to fail we saw this

in the popular show Biggest Loser where people had low calorie intake they

worked out they burned enormous amounts of energy they lost weight very quickly

but they gained it all back because they crashed their metabolism so that is the

kind of restriction that will slow metabolism fasting can actually restore

your metabolism in the long run and WebMD offered a handful of references to

support their case but I want to contrast that with an article I found at

the National Institute of Health public access it was written by Walter D Longo

and Marc P Matson and they are two researchers in the area of intermittent

fasting and metabolism and physiology to see what sort of benefits or detriment

might happen to the body as a result of fasting and they had gone through pretty

much every research article that there is on the topic so they had pages after

pages after pages of references and why am i showing you all this well simply to

make a point that when the proponents of intermittent fasting argue their case

that there is some information there has been some research done they're not just

randomly arguing their opinion next question is fasting safe

WebMD says fasting for a few days probably won't hurt most people who are

healthy but fasting for long periods is bad for you

what are the researchers have to say on that in humans one of the best

demonstrations of the benefits of long term fasting lasting one to three weeks

is in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis there is little doubt that

during the period of fasting both inflammation and pain are reduced in

rheumatoid arthritis patients so that's a crippling debilitating autoimmune

disease the only thing the medical profession can do is to give them

immunosuppressant drugs but the disease progresses anyway so here we have not

healthy people fasting more than a few days and they get better that doesn't

sound like a bad thing to me in another study they took water only and other

forms of long-term fasting have also been documented to lower blood pressure

on an average of 13 day of water only fasting it resulted in the lowering of

blood pressure in 82 percent of patients again another incurable irreversible

chronic condition that in less than two weeks they lowered it in 82 percent of

people not a bad thing the fifth objection is that your body needs

certain nutrients and if you don't get enough nutrients then you could have

symptoms such as fatigue dizziness constipation dehydration not being able

to tolerate cold temperatures and fasting too long can be life-threatening

so what caused these symptoms well they found in the research that there is a

critical transition period of about 3 to 6 weeks during which time the brain and

the body to the new eating pattern and then mood

is enhanced so just like everything else the body needs a little time to get

adapted but just like they found not only did the symptoms go away but people

actually felt better their mood improved they went on to say that it is likely

that during the latter transition period brain neuro chemistry changes so that

the addiction to regular consumption of food throughout the day is overcome and

we know today that a lot of people are addicted to food whether it is the

frequency or the quality or the type of food that they're eating but they have

found that intermittent fasting can help people overcome those addictive

behaviors and then we get to one of my pet peeves this is the stuff I kind of

get upset about when they say that don't fast even for a short time if you have

diabetes because it can lead to dangerous dips and spikes in blood sugar

when we talk about type 2 diabetics their problem is hyperinsulinemia too

much insulin and what the research says is that fasting for three or more days

causes a 30% or more decrease in circulating insulin and glucose so what

that means is if your insulin is too high and you fast it comes down it's

your best bet to reverse the condition but when they say that you can't fast if

you have diabetes what they're saying is you've screwed up your blood sugar

handling and we are suppressing your symptoms with insulin but if you start

fixing the problem on your own then the insulin is gonna push your blood sugar

too low and we wouldn't want that right so the only thing that could really help

them they're saying not to do instead of saying hey learn how much insulin to

take when you start fasting and of course if you stop eating then you can't

take the usual amount of insulin because of course

your blood sugar is going to drop but all it is is to learn to balance it and

fasting can actually reduce and reverse that condition type 2 diabetes is of

course associated with metabolic syndrome and the researchers say on that

topic periodic fasting can reverse multiple features of the metabolic

syndrome in humans it enhances insulin sensitivity stimulates lipolysis and

reduces blood pressure so the very thing that could actually help these people

they're told not to do next on the topic of safety

WebMD says that your body needs vitamins minerals and other nutrients from food

to stay healthy and then based on that they say that other people who should

not fast include women who are pregnant or breastfeeding as well as anyone with

a chronic disease the elderly and children and on that topic the research

says although extreme dietary interventions during old age may

continue to protect from age-related diseases meaning that it still has

anti-aging benefits extreme intervention could have detrimental effects on the

immune system and the ability to respond to certain infectious diseases wounds

and other challenges in other words if you're too weak you shouldn't go too

hard at the fasting then they say however intermittent fasting or

prolonged fasting designed to avoid weight loss and maximize nourishment has

the potential to have beneficial effects on infectious diseases wounds and other

insults even in the very old so if you're frail

don't do it too hard you don't have to do fasting to try to lose weight that

that's just kind of a side effect you do it to optimize autophagy

and all of the benefits of lowering insulin resistance and so forth so based

on the research the elderly can still do fasting what about pregnant women and

children well as long as you optimize nutrition and you eat enough there's not

a problem you can still get tremendous benefits by having a fourteen to sixteen

our fasting window that means you still have up to 10 hours of feeding and when

I grew up that was called three meals a day so not only does the research refute

these alleged dangers of intermittent fasting but they go one step further and

they say intermittent fasting and prolonged fasting based approaches

toward combating the current epidemics of overweight diabetes and related

diseases should be pursued in medical treatment plans not just that it's okay

but it should be done it should be the standard treatment in medical care and

one more thing that it can help with in addition by protecting cells from DNA

damage suppressing cell growth and enhancing apoptosis of damaged cells

fasting could retard and/or prevent the formation and growth of cancers but if

intermittent fasting and prolonged fasting can have all those benefits then

why is it not the standard of care why is it so opposed in mainstream medicine

and I think the reason is that mainstream medicine claims to be based

in science and research but they're very very conservative they're moving very

very slowly and they don't have to change much every time something new

comes around like low carb or intermittent fasting or keto which again

isn't really new it's what humans have done but it's different than what humans

have done in the last 50 years then they say oh sure it seems like it might work

for weight loss in the short term but we need more research and they're waiting

for this research to be done so that a generation or

from now they might have to change their mind so what's really going on is that

they're clinging to outdated research and why are they doing that because they

are the cultural authority they don't have to change until very recently when

information is being made available on the internet and people are starting to

learn and they're asking difficult questions now the medical profession has

to start keeping up and as I've said before this doesn't make them bad people

it just makes them human humans don't really like to change if they don't have

to and if you're the cultural authority you don't have to they're very very good

at what they do which is to treat symptoms and handle emergencies and

crises they're just not very good at health so we as the public have to

understand the difference that we go to the mainstream medicine with emergencies

and we learn how to take care of our health on our own intermittent fasting

and even prolonged fasting can be very safe and effective if we have some

common sense so first rule do it gradually then adapt it to your health

status so if you're very young or very old if you're pregnant if you have some

pre-existing condition then learn enough that you can do it appropriately for you

and finally don't do it at all where at least don't do prolonged fasting if

you're already malnourished or if you're emaciated or cachectic which is the end

stage of cancer where you're just wasting away those are not the times to do this or if

you're too thin already then eat some food and if you like this video then I

think you're really gonna like that one too

thank you so much for watching I'll see you next time