Dave and I have been doing a once weekly 24 hour fast for around 5 years. We stop eating after dinner Sundays and don’t eat again until dinnertime Monday.

All of a sudden you can’t go through a weeks news cycle without a headline touting fasting as the holy grail of health. We like to think we were ahead of the curve on this one. Two of our most popular blogs of all time are on the science of fasting both from 2015 here and here.

Fasting is no longer a ‘niche hipster’ thing to do. I bet each of you has friends that regularly fast in some form, whether a 16 and 8 ‘eating window’ form of intermittent fasting, or longer 1, 3, or 5 full day fasts.

In our opinion, fasting is a scientifically valid healthy act for most individuals. In fact, with so much positive research coming out weekly on fasting, we are now only interested in papers that significantly add to the conversation.

One such paper was just published September 3^rd in a very prestigious journal.

This clever paper looked at a very specific form of fasting that in theory is easy to perform……just eat every other day.

Yes, you read that correctly. People were asked to eat for 12 hours (between 8AM and 8PM) on one day, then not eat for 36 hours. During their ‘feast days’ they could eat whatever they wanted. On fasting days – only water, coffee and herbal teas (all zero calorie). Simple!

Before we get into the actual study let’s address what ALL of you are thinking….”Well there’s NO WAY I could do that”.

I disagree.

It turns out the study was really 2 studies in one. It compared 3 groups: One group of 30 individuals had already been performing alternate day fasting (ADF) for 6 months leading into the study. These folks were compared to another group of 30 people that performed ADF for 4 weeks continuous. Then there was a third group of 30 that just ate normally (control group).

Take a guess how many folks dropped out of the study because they found the ADF too difficult.

Really, take a guess……..

ONE! That’s right, only one individual dropped out of the ADF group. That means a whopping 97% of people are able to ADF for extended periods of time. The freaking control group had 2 dropouts!

In fact, this is only the first publication for this study. The 4 week ADF group is actually being followed for 6 months so they have long term data. When we speak about fasting with patients, there is an immediate limiting belief that they could never go hungry for that long. Well this group of study participants were normal folks aged 48-50 and they could do it….so why can’t you?

To ensure compliance, they made all study participants were continuous glucometers (worn in diabetics) to make certain they weren’t eating!

Also to ensure any changes weren’t due to changes in physical activity, they monitored this pre and during intervention and found no changes. All this to say, any observed changes were indeed from fasting.

In summary, the researchers found:

• For healthy, non-obese adults, ADF is safe to practice for several months (at least).
• Over a 4 week period there was a 37% average reduction in calorie intake.
• At 4 weeks there was a decrease in body weight by 4.5% with a preference for fat tissue, specifically around the abdomen (14.5% reduction in belly fat!).
• Fat to lean ratio was improved by 6.3% after just 4 weeks.
• There were dramatic improvements in cardiovascular disease risk factors including reduced blood pressure, heart rate, arterial and pulse pressure.
• ADF participants Framingham Risk Score (measures the risk in % to develop a cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years) saw a reduction of 1.416% which is massive in just 4 weeks.
• There was an increase in ‘longevity’ compounds in the ADF group’s blood. This was after just 4 weeks of fasting. AND the blood work was taken on feasting days meaning the change was real.
• In the 6 month group, there was further reduction in the levels of many age associated inflammatory markers and an increase in pro-longevity markers amongst other positive blood work findings.
• There were NO ADVERSE EVENTS, even after 6 months.

So if you’re looking at mechanisms to live longer, in short ADF caused a positive change in longevity blood work, improves your cardiac profile, makes you lose weight (specifically the scary belly fat), and dramatically decreases caloric intake. Pretty great argument.

One item that critics of fasting often bring up is the safety of long term fasting and it’s potential effects on bone density. Lowered bone density and subsequent reduction in white blood cells, is a major factor in long term caloric restriction.  This study actually showed a slight improvement in bone density via DEXA scan. This will certainly be something to watch in the 6 months follow up as this could potentially be a safe strategy for dramatic weight loss in folks with no compromise to bone density.

In short if you think not eating anything every second day doesn’t exactly sound easy I’m right there with you. It’s not easy. BUT, at least it’s simple to understand.