
Periodic fasting starves cisplatin‐resistant cancers to death - sjcsjc
http://emboj.embopress.org/content/early/2018/06/06/embj.201899815
======
vstuart
Very interesting! I (female; 57 y.o.) have been doing an intermittent fast (2
days/week: typically Tue/Thu) for >2.5 years now. I picked those days as they
don't interfere with social events, weekends, long weekends. I initially did
500 calories on those days, but for more than a year now I simply don't eat at
all on those days (but I drink coffee, tea). I find that much easier, as the
hunger pangs are largely absent. Benefits from this fasting include an
epigenetic reprogramming (perhaps?) of some stem cells, as from the outset
I've seen a few of the very few gray hairs that I have revert back to brown
(white further out; brown more recently to root). That could be triggered (or
entirely due to) e.g. by autophagy of the old, weakened cells and their
replacement by rejuvenated cells. Interesting, nonetheless. Body weight is
stabilized around the new metabolic set point (I record this daily in a tab-
delimited file, that I can easily plot with a simple linux command (alias
gp='echo "gnuplot -p /mnt/Vancouver/Programming/scripts/gnuplot/plot.gp')! On
non-diet days I eat whatever I want (I ashould add, pretty sensible: mostly
home-made food, meals), ad libitum. ;-)

Plot: [https://imgur.com/a/e3ahbtQ](https://imgur.com/a/e3ahbtQ)

~~~
dipro
Wow - I (male; 45 y.o.) have done virtually the same (2 days/week fast, Tue
and Fri, no food intake, only drinks - mostly water, sometimes coffee, rarely
some orange juice; on non-fast days ate without restriction) for one year now.

The curve looks quite similar:
[https://imgur.com/a/H4pKkNv](https://imgur.com/a/H4pKkNv)

What I find interesting is your mention of a metabolic set point. Wanted to
lose a bit more weight (since I still have visceral fat), but couldn't manage
to do so. It seems I hit a hard barrier - any caloric deficit during fasting
days was magically compensated exactly on non-fasting days; I tried to reduce
caloric intake on non-fasting days, but while fasting a whole day isn't that
difficult for me, restricting calories while eating seems to only work when my
body has met a magical internal quota.

It seems indeed to be a set point. The small uptick beginning of June was when
I skipped a fast day once. I'm a bit scared what would happen if I stopped
fasting altogether now.

Would be interesting to understand more about the set point - however, some
research on the net didn't yield much substantial info. It seems it exists,
but how it works exactly and how it can be moved is unclear. And even if
trying to move it makes sense. Maybe the set point is ideal health-wise, and
is overridden on unhealthy caloric surplus diets...?

~~~
a1369209993
> while fasting a whole day isn't that difficult for me, restricting calories
> while eating seems to only work when my body has met a magical internal
> quota.

One dirty trick to try is, just after eating, to drink about two tablespoons
of staight "extra-light" olive oil. It's a bit foul, but makes for a effective
way of ruining your appetite. Other "bland food diet" tricks might also work.

(I'd like to mention that I do not support healthy diets, but my design to
work against anything nature intends takes priority.)

Edit: two tablespoons, not eight, and apparently they make low-fat olive oil
now.

~~~
StavrosK
> drink about half a cup of staight olive oil. It's a bit foul, but makes for
> a effective way of ruining your appetite

It's also a very effective way of getting 1000 kcal.

~~~
a1369209993
I tracked down the original suggestion to here[0], and I was off by a factor
of four. Mea culpa, especially since I've actually used the 2 tbsp version a
couple of times.

0: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/25/book-review-the-
hungry-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/25/book-review-the-hungry-
brain/) # middle of section IV

~~~
StavrosK
That's much more reasonable, but it's still around a candy bar's worth of
calories. You may want to find a different method, depending on how much you
want to cut.

~~~
Frye9876
I find brushing my teeth helps.

------
Taylor_OD
For many months last year I would do a 5 day water fast the third week of
every month. I enjoyed it but my mental performance at work suffered during
the end of the fast.

I've been intermittent fasting for the last 2 months. I eat breakfast around
7:30 (protein shake I make at home with some healthy things tossed in), eat an
orange or apple around 10AM, a large salad I make at work without any dressing
at noonish, and a handful of cashews and almonds at 2:00PM. That's it. Nothing
after that. I'll drink some unsweetened herbal tea or a carbonated water
around 7pm sometimes when I'm winding down.

It's by far the best diet I've ever been on. It's hard sometimes when work
events offer food/drinks after my eating window closes but not that hard. If I
have to do work drinks I'll do a vodka soda to minimize my caloric intake.

Now I walk around at the weight that I wrestled at in college, I don't feel
hungry often, and I feel great during the day.

I'm trying to get my family to try it for a few weeks to spur a lifestyle /
eating change but it's been difficult. Most people are locked into the three
meals a day (and likely a few snacks) mindset.

~~~
dghughes
Vodka is not a good choice, ethanol (7kcal/g) is second only to fat (9kcal/g)
for caloric density.

~~~
JamesBarney
The calories per gram you reference is how much energy you get out of
substance from literally setting it on fire.

But how much actual energy is available to the human body is very different.
And alcohol specifically is very hard for the human body to efficiently turn
into eneegy.

In addition alcohol make the mitochondria more inefficient leading to greater
energy usage.

Most studies that add alcohol to animals diet find no change in weight.

~~~
dghughes
Nutritional charts show the data I mentioned.

Are you referring to the word calorie used? For food calorie is shortened from
kilocalorie.

~~~
JamesBarney
I'm saying the nutritional charts are misleading.

A calorie is a unit of measure of energy right? But you can release different
amounts of energy depending on the chemical reaction you use.

Well the chemical reaction they use to measure energy in macronutrients is not
the same chemical reaction that is used by the human body, they burn it
instead. Now for most macronutrients this doesn't matter because the amount of
calories released by the human body is pretty close to the amount released by
burning.

But this isn't true of ethanol which is very efficiently burned, but very
inefficiently consumed by the human body. So the 7 Cal/gram is very
misleading.

------
bad_user
Fasting is great for weight loss and for lowering your insulin resistance,
which is now considered by many the main cause of obesity and of course type 2
diabetes. This has been shown by studies.

Some say that fasting activates "autophagy" which has great health benefits,
supposedly being great for preventing the remission of cancer:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy)
— but note that I could not find any concrete study or proof of it, this being
anecdotal evidence from some clinics that advise their patients to do fasting
instead of chemotherapy.

I practice fasting for 36 hours, 3 times per week. Monday, Wednesday and
Friday I don't eat or drink anything other than water and coffee. You can go
shorter, like one meal per day in some days or longer, e.g. 5 days is easy
once you get used to it.

As a tip: eating high fat, low carbs meals before fasting helps. Also if you
get dizzy or if you get cramps, you probably have an electrolytes imbalance
and you need to stop your fast. If that happens to you, make sure to take salt
(sodium) and possibly magnesium supplements. Once I started doing that, the
dizziness and the cramps stopped. But document yourself first and consulting a
doctor and doing some blood work might be good ideas.

This is a pretty good book on the subject: [https://www.amazon.com/Complete-
Guide-Fasting-Intermittent-A...](https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-
Fasting-Intermittent-Alternate-Day/dp/1628600012)

~~~
user9182031
It seems like every day somebody has figured out how to beat type 2 diabetes.
I just read Proteinaholic by Dr. Garth Davis who advocates a vegan lifestyle
(while telling you that carbs are not the enemy) to cure diabetes.

~~~
bad_user
Our metabolism is very complex. But if it's not backed up by studies and
science, it doesn't count.

Type 2 diabetes is defined by insulin resistance. The only way to "beat" type
2 diabetes is to lower your insulin resistance and thus to lower your insulin
response. At the moment you can only lower your insulin with lifestyle changes
that implies fasting + eating a diet that triggers a low insulin response.

The vegan lifestyle is high in carbs. What many people don't understand is
that there are only 3 macro-nutrients: proteins, fats and carbs. You cannot do
a low carbs diet without at least eggs and diary. And carbs stimulate insulin.

Note that there are clinics that have successfully treated people of diabetes
via fasting. Here's one: [https://idmprogram.com/](https://idmprogram.com/)

N.B. carbohydrates are not the enemy, but _refined carbohydrates_ are and
unfortunately for a type 2 diabetic it's too late to switch to healthy carbs.

Yes, a potato is healthy, however for a diabetic it is basically poison.

~~~
teekert
Complex carbs (fibers or at least carbohydrates that are slowly digested) do
not stimulate insulin production as far as I know. I think it is very
important to realize that there are different types of carbohydrates. You need
fuel (carbs/sugars), you just don't need them to get rushed into your blood at
breakneck speeds requiring massive insulin dosages to bring it back down. You
want them supplied slowly and steadily to your blood during the day and night.
Which is what happens when your body and your gut microbes slowly degrade
complex carbs into smaller constituents, such as sugars.

------
al_ramich
Obviously, it would be speculative given many factors that contribute to
cancer like healthy eating, drinking, smoking... but it is interesting that in
the top 50 countries with the highest rate of cancer, there are no Muslim
countries. Fasting could be a factor that contributes to this.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cancer_ra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cancer_rate)

~~~
theprotocol
I highly doubt this hypothesis.

Muslim people do not fast at night time. On average, they tend to eat _much
more_ during Ramadan what with the vast array of seasonal sweets.

The true difficulty of fasting during Ramadan is not being allowed to drink
water during the day.

~~~
evfanknitram
Regarding the "true difficulty" I don't think you can generalize like that.
For example I suspect it depends on where you live, what hours fasting is,
temperature and so on.

My friends here have told me that the main problem is to eat enough during the
night because after fasting for 18 hours your body get used to it. I assume
similar to my issues eating a bkg breakfast in the morning directly after
waking up.

~~~
theprotocol
Fair enough. It was an orthogonal comment anyway.

------
rainbowmverse
The main thing I got out of this thread is that everyone thinks they know the
right way to health, that everyone else disagrees with them, and I have no
idea how to tell who's actually right.

If you want to know why there's a health problem in some developed countries,
the confidence of all the factions in the back and forth in this thread is a
shining example. Unless you can afford professional guidance (and know how to
tell if they know what they're talking about), you don't have much hope unless
you stumble on to something that works for you.

~~~
lolc
I don't get that impression. Maybe I have selective reading but the following
things get little controversy here:

1\. Sugar bad

2\. Eat less

3\. Find good eating-habits that you can maintain indefinitely

Point three is where people will naturally have different outlooks. I don't
read that as disagreement as much as diversity.

~~~
nradov
Points 1 and 2 are certainly controversial for endurance athletes doing
intense workouts or races. Those are a small fraction of the population, but
the point is there are hardly any universal guidelines.

~~~
83457
or those are the exceptions that prove the guideline

------
noelwelsh
The fasts are only a few days long, which is fairly easy to do. It's not clear
to me if these results have been shown in humans or just mice. Anyway,
interesting result suggesting that occasional fasts might be a good
preventative measure. It would be interesting to know if 16 hour fasts, which
are common in intermittent fasting, would have the same effect.

------
dagoat
Non pay walled: [http://sci-
hub.tw/http://emboj.embopress.org/content/early/2...](http://sci-
hub.tw/http://emboj.embopress.org/content/early/2018/06/06/embj.201899815#)

highlight:

 _A549 CDDP-resistant cancer cells showed reduced tumor growth and longer
survival in response to periodic fasting cycles (24 hours of water only twice
a week). In contrast, CDDP-sensitive tumors were not affected by these 24-hour
fasting cycles. Because previous results indicated that 2–3 consecutive days
of fasting were effective against a wide range of cancers, particularly in
combination with chemotherapy (Lee et al, 2012; Bianchi et al, 2015), it would
be important to test these longer fasting periods on A549 and other CDDP-
resistant cancer_

~~~
brfox
That paper is a mini review of this paper which actually has the data in it:
[http://emboj.embopress.org/content/37/14/e98597](http://emboj.embopress.org/content/37/14/e98597)

In there, they did work on A549 cell lines and showed that removing nutrients
from the media decreased their growth rate. They also showed that putting
these human cell lines into immune deficient mice and doing a couple 24hr
fasts per week had a small (p=0.03) effect on the tumor growth rate (Fig 2).
But in the in vivo study, it appears they didn't directly compare A549 vs
cisplatin resistant A549 - they seemed to have run 2 studies both vs control.

There are literally thousands of papers showing drugs or treatments which can
cure lab mice of "cancer" and many more which can kill cell lines in vivo, but
only a tiny percentage of those work in patients. There is a reason this is
not in a higher profile journal.

------
buzzdenver
Is fasting supposed to work just due to going into a caloric hole, or is there
also a time component to it? In other words: does a 6 hour run/hike on an
empty stomach where I burn 4000 Calories have the same effect as fasting for
36 hours?

~~~
nradov
Is that a realistic example? Very few people including trained athletes would
actually be able to expend 4000kcal in 6 hours without some nutrition. After
the immediate glycogen stores are depleted in a couple hours your power output
drops dramatically if you don't consume anything.

~~~
buzzdenver
Today I just did a strenuous 4-hour hike on an empty stomach which based on my
weight was about 2500-3000 calories. I drank about 100 calories worth of
Gatorade, and I don't do any special diets. Just years of long runs/hikes.

------
mbroshi
Somewhat perpendicular, but intermittent fasting has been a great recent
lifehack for me. I skip breakfast every day, and sometimes skip lunch. Gives
me back at least an hour every day. And gorging for dinner is a lot of fun.

~~~
rc_bhg
That is not a healthy diet. You should be eating smaller meal more often. If
you are going to fast, do it for at least a 24 hour period.

~~~
mirceal
I think it’s worth considering what a healthy diet really is. Is it really
healthy or are we just used to thinking it’s healthy?

As an example, a diet high in fat is generally considered by most people to be
unhealthy.

You see people doing Keto and you start wondering if it’s really unhealthy.

Eating red meat is considered to be the unhealthy. You see people doing
ZeroCarb diets and they (at least) look extremely good/healthy.

Fasting is generally considered unhealthy. You have people doing intermittent
fasting, ADF or extended fasting at it works exceptionally well for them.

Vegan? It works really well for some people.

IMHO there isn’t one thing that works for everyone as far as diet goes. There
are also the theoretical and the practical aspects of what we eat and when we
it it.

I think everyone should try different things and figure out something that
works for them, long term. It should not be a “diet”. It should be just
something that blends into your lifestyle and gives you results for the
investment you’re making.

~~~
738472527784
Though, nearly all of those diets seem integrate more veggies and massively
reduce sugar.

~~~
mirceal
Reducing sugar is probably a good idea.

------
IB885588
For those interested in intermittent fasting, Valter Longo, the co-author of
this paper, has done a few good interviews with Rhonda Patrick on her podcast
and youtube:

[https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/valter-
longo](https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/valter-longo)

[https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/valter-
longo-2](https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/valter-longo-2)

I've quite enjoyed Rhonda's work.

Another good medical/biology/health podcast that recently appeared and that
I'd enjoying a lot is Peter Attia's podcast. His interview with Dom D'Agostino
is particularly good and includes discussion of the metabolic theory of
cancer, but they're all good (he has one with Rhonda Patrick). He covers
intermittent fasting among other things (also the health impacts/use of
ketones, etc):

[https://peterattiamd.com/domdagostino/](https://peterattiamd.com/domdagostino/)

[https://peterattiamd.com/rhondapatrick/](https://peterattiamd.com/rhondapatrick/)

~~~
sjcsjc
You might also want to look at Mark Mattson's work.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Mattson#Intermittent_Fast...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Mattson#Intermittent_Fasting)

------
supernova87a
Look, stop applying pseudo-science "feels-right" intuition to things that
involve complicated cellular mechanisms. It doesn't work that way and you
should just listen to what your doctor(s) tell you and trust them + your own
due diligence.

Fasting doesn't "starve" cancer cells. Drinking only juice for a week doesn't
"cleanse" your body.

Stop making up your own medical diagnoses fueled by internet bullshit. Listen
to experts and trust them for a change.

~~~
triviatise
most doctors get little to no nutritional education. It is easy to learn about
any one topic and know more than your physician. Especially since most
physicians dont regularly read journal articles and probably dont even really
understand statistics.

Appeals to authority are a logical fallacy. I do agree that reading something
on the internet and following it is a bad practice.

------
barking
In Gaelic the words for Wednesday mean "First Fast day", those for Thursday
"day between fasts" and for Friday "Fast day". So the 5:2 diet is nothing new.

------
sandworm101
Not much of a suprise really. It fits the model that cancer cells are weaker,
that any stress to the entire body might see them die off first. That is the
basis of non-targeted chemo and radiation treatment. You apply the stress and
hope it kills the cancer before the patient. So here we starve the patient and
see the hungry cancer cells suffer the most. But just dont go so far that the
immune system suffers too. That wont end well.

~~~
Nae3Au5x
In this case it also relies on the resistant cancer cells having altered
metabolic pathways compared to your average cancer. It's not an universally
applicable strategy.

Remember, fasting didn't work out so well for Jobs.

~~~
eganist
He also made himself a fruitarian, so the stress on his body was from a lot
more than just fasting.

This same diet landed Ashton Kutcher in the hospital when he tried to go
method for Jobs.

~~~
ojosilva
Jobs was a fruitarian in the 80s or earlier, back when he named his company
"Apple". AFAIK he was neither fasting or being a fruitarian to fight his
cancer, but overall he was a finicky eater all his life, a (sometimes lax)
vegetarian with bouts that resembled a true eating disorder.

~~~
macintux
I don't have a source, but I recall reading that friends of his desperately
tried to convince him to undergo "real" treatment for his cancer instead of
relying on alternative medicine, so apparently he did try other options early
on.

~~~
ojosilva
Here's a good compilation of his unorthodox eating habits:

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/naughty-
nutrition/20...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/naughty-
nutrition/201201/ivegetarian-the-high-fructose-diet-steve-jobs)

------
malbs
so I just completed 4 months of fasting (I had a friendly wager going, where I
had to lose 15kg in 16 weeks, or pay $2000)

I did it via intermittent fasting (no breakfast, or lunch, black coffee/water
only, and a normal dinner)

Chart: [https://imgur.com/a/rzckgMi](https://imgur.com/a/rzckgMi)

Basic routine was this

Monday, fast, overhead press at gym Tuesday, normal eating, deadlifts
Wednesday, fast, rowing/kettlebells Thursday, normal eating, bench press
Friday, normal eating, squats Saturday, fast, cardio/hiit Sunday, normal
eating

came in under the target (needed 15kg, ended up losing 18kg) and won myself
$2000 because the guy I had the wager with didn't hit his target.

Fasting really works, it doesn't cost you anything, and you save money.

~~~
FieryTransition
Do you have any data on your muscle mass or lean body mass? Did you have a
gain or loss in muscle mass? Or was it the same? thanks.

------
olivermarks
Not happy with the certainty of the headline. A very close friend of mine who
died of cancer chose dietary treatment over western medicine, and had a very
grueling, unpleasant death in a remote place.

------
peter_retief
There is a lot of evidence that high fat low carbohydrate diets, also know as
fasting diets have enormous health benefits, completely at odds with the
dietary recommendation here [https://www.choosemyplate.gov/dietary-
guidelines](https://www.choosemyplate.gov/dietary-guidelines) is one of the
drivers of obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome which in includes heart
disease and high blood pressure

~~~
cageface
Calorie restrictions in general are healthy. You can accomplish the same
things with high carb diets provided you eat unprocessed complex carbs and
reduce total calories.

~~~
arcticbull
Studies show that calorie restriction and fasting are actually different -
during calorie restriction your body reduces energy consumption and
metabolism, and while you can lose weight, it's proven hard to stick to and
most people put that weight back on.

Fasting OTOH actually increases your metabolic rate [1], stimulates HGH
production [4, 5], your brain switches to primarily consuming ketones instead
of glucose and your body begins consuming damaged proteins via autophagy.
Interestingly enough, studies show weight lost during fasting is better kept
off than the equivalent loss with calorie restriction. Your body also resets
what it considers 'low' levels of insulin, leptin, etc which can reverse Type
II [2, 3]. That can't happen as effectively if you eat.

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292)

[2]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462)

[3]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16051710](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16051710)

[4]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337)

[5]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426)

~~~
cageface
Yeah I understand that they are different but it's also true that restricting
calories overall and losing weight is beneficial no matter what diet you use
to do it. So the question is which of the many diets that can do this is the
best for your long term health.

~~~
arcticbull
The thing is calorie restriction usually leads to full weight re-gain, usually
quickly [1, 2], potentially leading to a worse body composition after the
diet. The same is not true of fasting [2] - speculatively due to the effect of
HGH during fasting which is known to change body composition, reducing fat
percentage and increasing lean muscle mass. HGH production is not meaningfully
increased by calorie restriction - it's pulsatile and regulated by the
presence of any food intake at all almost no matter how small.

Further, there's a string of evidence that alternate day fasting yields
substantially improved biomarkers of health (triglycerides, insulin, etc) even
if total caloric intake averaged over the two days remains the same (i.e.
every second day you eat 2x what you need) and weight does not change.

Weight watchers is an abject failure by their own metrics in a study they
published. Their calorie restricted diets are less effective than doing
nothing, but being generous, they work for 0.2% of participants who have
clearly demonstrated an intent to change their bodies [3]. On the other hand,
eat nothing for 36 hours and you're down 1 pound of fat, and it's not likely
to come back.

That's what all that talk of yoyo dieting is, and a case can be made that its
why the Minnesota Starvation Experiment led to such bad outcomes. They weren't
fasting, they were eating a reduced calorie diet - they may have been much
better off eating nothing. Contrast that outcome to this, albeit single data
point, of a man who ate nothing for 382 days, felt great, wasn't hungry (?!)
and lost 275lbs AND kept it all off 5 years later [4].

What I'm getting at here is the science is leaning towards what you're saying
not being correct - that how often you eat may be more important than how
much, that your body reacts very differently to 6 snacks a day than it does to
1 giant meal every 2 days even if the caloric content is the same. And further
that people just aren't built for long-term calorie restriction and to
recommend something like that isn't productive.

[1] [https://betterhumans.coach.me/why-caloric-restriction-
fails-...](https://betterhumans.coach.me/why-caloric-restriction-
fails-9dc18fe9cf23)

[2] [https://alivebynature.com/fast-weight-loss-does-not-
promote-...](https://alivebynature.com/fast-weight-loss-does-not-promote-
weight-regain/)

[3] [https://fatfu.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/weight-
watchers/](https://fatfu.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/weight-watchers/)

[4]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/pos...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/postmedj00315-0056.pdf)

(Each of these should link through to NCBI papers)

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Your [2] source isn't saying fasting, it's saying quick weight loss. Outside
of that one gentlemen who's an outlier in nearly ever aspect you didn't post
anything that talked about fasting.

~~~
arcticbull
Sorry I was hopping between wifi connections at airports and didn't have the
studies I wanted on hand (I don't really keep a stack for any time I want to
make a case haha); curious what you make of these papers. In general it's hard
to find proper fasting studies on humans due to perception issues though I
think that's changing now.

ADF succeeds in the reduction of insulin resistance/type II:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462)

Fasting increases metabolic rate:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14066725](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14066725)
and
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292)

Fasting dramatically increase HGH production:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426)
and
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337)

IF (1 meal per day) improves body composition even when the caloric intake
remains unchanged:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17413096](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17413096)

Body composition is better after fasting than caloric restriction even in the
event of equal amount of mass re-gain (i.e. regain after CR is fat, after ADF
is muscle/lean):
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5042570/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5042570/)

And here's the mouse study I mentioned (I think I cited rats) showing ADF
improves metabolic markers without change in caloric intake, but of course,
it's mice, so YMMV:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5872764/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5872764/)

In case you hadn't figured it out, I fasted for a while out of personal
curiosity and in the spirit of self-experimentation (a few 5-day fasts) and
wanted to learn all about what I was getting myself into. Honestly, for the
record, it was quite easy; after day 2 I just wasn't hungry anymore. In fact I
felt quite energized and focused, which from the studies above, is likely due
to increased noradrenaline levels.

------
Skrillex
Off-topic:

Articles like this, and most others that deal with health and medicine,
present a problem for me that is somewhat hard to describe. The research for
this one appears to be built upon prior research (which is hopefully validated
with these findings) and the two headliners appear to have some credentials,
so let us skip the question of whether or not the reporting itself can be
trusted, as that is not what this is about. The first thing that I notice is
that the trials mentioned in the article do not seem capable of proving the
claim made in the title, but let us assume that they instead ran a trial
involving humans fasting (which could be incited by a study like this) and had
the same results. I would like to believe that this is a breakthrough, but how
is it to be reconciled with the other 400 breakthroughs we find for various
cancers each month? If even a small percentage of them were as valuable as
they are expressed to be (and we ignore the contradicting evidence), I would
expect cancer, diabetes, and obesity (at least!) to be solved problems by now.
I suppose that what I am saying is that with there being so much FUD and so
many actual unknowns about what determines the well-being of humans that I
find most studies to be hard to believe, especially without being able to test
most of it myself. It might be a given that nothing you read can be fully
trusted, but it is becoming difficult for me to trust at all, and that is
without even considering the fact that some people are reporting findings for
studies that never happened. It seems to me that the two most common
strategies are to either believe one thing and reject all new information that
contradicts it, or to believe most of the new information. Overall, I am left
feeling hopeful that the people to who articles like this would make the
greatest difference to have found a logical and efficient way to handle this
sort of situation.

Any thoughts?

------
13years
Fasting also seems to be protective to your health cells from being damaged.

[https://news.usc.edu/118758/fasting-during-chemotherapy-
may-...](https://news.usc.edu/118758/fasting-during-chemotherapy-may-offset-
spikes-in-blood-sugar-caused-by-cancer-fighting-drugs/)

------
sigvirt
To feed everyone's inquiry/discussion of diet, nutrition, and western disease
(though not fasting per se): two particular researchers/authors had much
mindshare and influence in Bay Area circles a decade ago. They've not been
mentioned on HN in several years, so this will bring forward and tie in the
references and discussions for newcomers.

The China Study - by T. Colin Campbell :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study)
:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Colin_Campbell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Colin_Campbell)

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto - by Michael Pollan :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Defense_of_Food](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Defense_of_Food)
:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pollan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pollan)

The China Study is notably a retrospective of primary research on diet,
nutrition, and disease spanning nearly a century. There are many breadcrumbs
for further reading. Campbell was a top-tier government/academic researcher
for several decades. The summary conclusion is that western diseases (e.g.
diabetes, cancer, heart ...) are strongly correlated with increased ratio of
animal product consumption, especially in presence of environmental toxins - a
binary poison cocktail one might say. Genetics are a factor, he says, but not
so pervasively as the other two.

Michael Pollan is iconically known for the phrase, "Eat Food, Mostly Plants,
Not Too Much". A prolific author and journalist, he is on about many of the
same things Campbell is: cautioning about a) over-reliance on reductive
analysis of food nutrient components, and about b) over-indulgence in
foodstuffs that passed through some industrial process on way from earth to
earthling.

Edit: formatting

------
fredliu
There's a documentary: The Science of Fasting (
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1b08X-GvRs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1b08X-GvRs))
which talks about fascinating effects of fasting therapy, and interesting
effects of fasting on cancer treatment. Looks like it's inline with what's
discussed here and in the comment section. On the flip side, I feel like
fasting has the potential of becoming the new "meditation", but with more
potential danger than just an over-hyped hip practice.

------
bitL
So, how long should we fast? I was thinking about doing 24h fasts every Friday
instead of 3-day fasts every two months. Which one would be better from the
article's point of view (as a preventive measure)?

~~~
hackermailman
There's many articles on the University of Southern California site
[https://news.usc.edu/?s=fasting](https://news.usc.edu/?s=fasting) most have
been posted here over time.

Like the fasting mimicking diets they came up with
[https://news.usc.edu/82959/diet-that-mimics-fasting-
appears-...](https://news.usc.edu/82959/diet-that-mimics-fasting-appears-to-
slow-aging/)

That later turned into a startup
[https://prolonfmd.com/](https://prolonfmd.com/) of 5 day fasting at different
monthly intervals depending on your weight, but you can read the orig paper to
see what the calorie restrictions were and just make/measure your own food.

------
hinkley
This reminds me of a paper maybe ten years back where they found that normal
cells go into a holding pattern (I hesitate to use the word hibernation) when
resources are scarce, but cancer cells do not.

Because healthy cells are less active, they take less damage from chemo. So
they were looking at intermittent fasting before chemo to reduce the
collateral damage.

------
bayesian_horse
Most intermittent fasting works on a 1-3 day fasting schedule. It doesn't
really work for me, maybe because of decision fatigue, maybe I just lack the
discipline.

Currently I try to loose weight by shooting for two weeks fasting, one week
not. About 10kg gone, 40 left to go.

------
farresito
Anyone doing weight lifting has any experience with fasting? I'm not so
interested in doing weight lifting while fasting (doesn't sound too good) as
in the muscle gain/loss after a fast.

~~~
plausibilities
Me.

I currently maintain a 2.3x bodyweight deadlift and 1.5x bench press while
working a relatively tame & laid-back salaried dev job.

Can't do IF (multi-day, anyways) without losing lean mass anymore. Used to be
able to until I started plateauing on my lifts.

My guess is as you gain more and more lean muscle mass, there's some arbitrary
threshold (which differs person to person) at which your TDEE begins to exceed
viable intake within a limited timeframe.

I specify "viable intake" because your body's nutrient uptake rate per hour
has some given limit - anything over that limit usually just gets pooped out
later.

Restricting timeframe for eating during the day (break my fast after work)
seems to work out okay though.

------
diogenescynic
People without cancer already don’t eat, or hardly as they often lose their
appetite due to cancer treatments. Why is that different than this?

------
runeks
For someone with access to the article: what was the duration and frequency of
the fasting that was shown to cure certain cancer types?

------
barftransit
"I've found that I feel so good when I fast and I don't know why, but please
listen to me about myself" \- HN

------
abledon
Combine that with 30s+ mayurasana for a total intestinal workout. (Work
towards 5 minutes)

------
kolbe
I thought this applied to all diets that induce ketogenesis.

------
camelNotation
Rewritten for normal people:

Cancer sometimes becomes resistant to chemotherapy, but we did a study that
shows a certain type of lung cancer is highly dependent on a certain amino
acid and when you fast intermittently it deprives the cancer of that amino
acid and causes the cancer cells to die.

~~~
varunpant
Fast for how long ? Few days a week ?

~~~
atrexler
I've no idea about the fasting stuff. Just thought its important to make clear
this particular study is all about doing stuff to cells or lumps of cells in
dishes (again sorry if I missed more involved model system in the paper).
Whether thats a good model for cancer in people and how fasting interacts with
that I honestly have no idea.

------
StriverGuy
Anyone have a link without a paywall?

~~~
astrodev
[https://sci-hub.tw/10.15252/embj.201899815](https://sci-
hub.tw/10.15252/embj.201899815)

~~~
arisAlexis
I seriously seriously thank you. I have a family history of this specific
cancer and wanted to read about it.

------
aviv
Do I get back the 3,000 HN Karma points I lost to downvotes after years of
suggesting fasting as a viable treatment for a whole host of "diseases"? One
day people will see it as obvious as "smoking is bad for you". One day.

~~~
mirceal
Why do you care about karma so much? Express your opinion and forget about
“internet points”.

~~~
1996
Because you want to join in the conversation, and with lower amounts of
magical points you get more often messages telling you to "slow down" _AFTER_
you have carefully written a message in 5 to to 10 minutes. This is
infuriating when english is not your native language and writing
understandable language is slow, especially to communicate complex thought
that may be not evident.

Due to my unpopular opinions about how some countries and companies are often
targetted in US media, even on unrelated articles, this happens to me. I like
taking breaks on HN, but the more it happens, the more I am going to other
places instead.

This is not about being true or being right - just whether your conversation
is following the mainstream opinion or not.

If later it proves to be right? Too bad for you. This is the case on most
forums with up and downvoting, and it forces dissent out.

I am interested in conversation for learning and sharing. The post I read the
more carefully are greyed out or dead. Most are ads or crankpots, but in 1% of
the time I get gems.

Sinple example: would you have preferred to learn about intermittent fasting
now, or 5 years ago? Me: 5 years ago, but too many downvotes may have pushed
out of the community people like the parent poster.

~~~
LinuxBender
I find it useful to take notes on discussions that seem illogical,
unscientific, dogmatic, etc. Later on, one can always post their counter
arguments on github [1] or their own site [2] where it won't be grey text. You
could even start your own forum, where you can set the guidelines.

[1] - [https://github.com/](https://github.com/)

[2] - [http://n-gate.com/](http://n-gate.com/)

Not my sites, just an example. You can make the text as big, bold and readable
as you wish. I prefer really simple stylesheets.

~~~
bitwize
That site (starts with N and ends with gate) doesn't like to be mentioned here
on Hackernews. If you link to there from here, it will pull a jwz -- albeit
thankfully, without the nutsack, just a fake "captcha" that's really a looping
"Loading" gif.

~~~
LinuxBender
That's too funny. I suppose I've never clicked on a link from here to there. I
also block javascript so maybe that is also why I have not seen it.

------
yogiwannabe
Here is ancient wisdom on this:
[https://youtu.be/tkuF1VmLoRs](https://youtu.be/tkuF1VmLoRs) If you are
looking for scientific data, you will not got any but WISDOM, a plenty :-).
This is from an Enlightened Living Master.

------
alokitr
I adhere to a eat nothing diet. Then after I have starved, I am awakened and I
gouge myself to death. The cycle then restarts. The powers that be make sure I
don't die cause who's gonna do a quickening on the highlander if I do ?

