fasting tagged posts

Study Identifies Multi-Organ Response to Seven Days Without Food

organs
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Study identifies multi-organ response to seven days without food. New findings reveal that the body undergoes significant, systematic changes across multiple organs during prolonged periods of fasting. The results demonstrate evidence of health benefits beyond weight loss, but also show that any potentially health-altering changes appear to occur only after three days without food.

The study, published in Nature Metabolism, advances our understanding of what’s happening across the body after prolonged periods without food.

By identifying the potential health benefits from fasting and their underlying molecular basis, researchers from Queen Mary University of London’s Precision Healthcare University Research Institute (PHURI) and the Norwegian School of S...

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How the Brain tells the Liver to start Recycling after Fasting

The picture is divided into two halves and shows a colourful staining of cells under the microscope. On the right, the pink staining is much stronger.
AgRP neurons in the brain are activated by fasting. The images show immunostaining of neurons from mice that fast for four hours (right) and mice that do not fast (left). Stained are AgRP neurons (Cyan), POMC neurons (Yellow) and a marker for synaptic activity (cFOS, Magenta).
© Weiyi Chen/ Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research

Fasting triggers autophagy in our body. The body switches on the waste disposal system in the cells and gains new energy. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne have now shown in mice that the brain plays a decisive role in this process.

Even after a short period of fasting, the brain triggers the release of the hormone corticosterone and thus initiates autophagy in the liver...

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Scientists discover Potential Cause of Alzheimer’s Disease

Existing drugs may offer effective treatment. Prevailing theories posit plaques in the brain cause Alzheimer’s disease. New UC Riverside research points to cells’ slowing ability to clean themselves as the likely cause of unhealthy brain buildup.

Along with signs of dementia, doctors make a definitive Alzheimer’s diagnosis if they find a combination of two things in the brain: amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. The plaques are a buildup of amyloid peptides, and the tangles are mostly made of a protein called tau.

“Roughly 20% of people have the plaques, but no signs of dementia,” said UCR Chemistry Professor Ryan Julian. “This makes it seem as though the plaques themselves are not the cause.”

For this reason, Julian and his colleagues investigated understudied aspec...

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Fasting Ramps up Human Metabolism, study shows

A study by the G0 Cell Unit and Kyoto University researchers suggests that fasting, which puts the body in ‘starvation mode,’ leads to fuel substitution, antioxidation, increased mitochondrial activation and altered signal transduction.
Credit: OIST

Fasting may help people lose weight, but new research suggests going without food may also boost human metabolic activity, generate antioxidants, and help reverse some effects of aging. Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) and Kyoto University identified 30 previously-unreported substances whose quantity increases during fasting and indicate a variety of health benefits.

“We have been researching aging and metabolism for many years and decided to search for unknown health effects in human ...

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