Chances are you're probably thinking about food right now in some capacity.
Maybe it's close to dinner, and you're wondering what you are going to eat. Maybe you had a really good lunch and are fondly reminiscing about your BLT or whatnot. Or maybe, just maybe, you're thinking about not eating food for a while.
If you're thinking about the latter, researchers at MIT have discovered that 24-hour fasting flips a metabolic switch in mice, causing their guts to enhance their intestinal stem cells.
Intestinal stem cells are what powers the intestine, and as people age, this powerhouse starts to slow down. Ever wonder why you put on more weight as you get older? Thank your gut flora, including these cells. Yes, intermittent fasting can help you lose weight!
The researchers found that 24 hour fasting caused intestinal cell regeneration to double. While the trial has yet to be performed on humans, the biology behind these stem cells isn't wildly different from ours at all.
So, even though 24-hour fasting may make you hangry (hungry + angry), it looks like it will undoubtedly speed up your metabolism.
These cells regenerate on their own roughly every 4 days, so while it isn't our place at all to tell you how to diet much less tell you that fasting will work for everybody, the science is in.
And celebrities like Jimmy Kimmel and Benedict Cumberbatch have kept the pounds off over the years thanks to intermittent short fasts. One of the most popular of these diets is the 5–2 diet, which allows 5 days of eating normally and 2 days of severe caloric restrictions of 600 calories or less on the fasting days.
Those with diabetes or metabolic diseases should definitely consult a doctor before jumping in the deep and attempting a somewhat extreme diet. It's not for everyone, but the results achieved by the fasting appear to mimic cell autophagy, or “cellular cleaning” of damaged cells.
Not bad for just withholding, eh? This informative article on the popular fasting diet 5-2 for weight loss was written by NED DYMOKE and first published on BigThink.