FASTING & CALORIE RESTRICTION FOR HEALTHY LIFESPAN

TOPIC: Science & Tech

Context- A study of data from 186 countries in the journal The Lancet revealed that obese people now out number underweight individuals.

Concept-

Fasting versus CR:

Fasting

Calorie Restriction

Fasting is the willful refrainment from eating and sometimes drinking.

There are several strategies for fasting.

● In intermittent fasting (IF) is an alternate 24 hour period without any food with 24 hours of normal eating.

● In periodic fasting fast for one or two days followed by ﬁve days of normal diet.

● In time restricted feeding (TRF), all daily intake is done within a 4–12 hour window.

CR results from reducing caloric intake by 15% to 40%, without leading to malnutrition.

We store glucose in the form of glycogen in the liver, and the energy demands of the body are met from this reservoir.
One day of fasting leads to a 20% decrease in blood sugar levels and depleted glycogen reserves.
The body switches to a metabolic mode where energy is obtained from fat derived ke tone bodies and from glucose outside the liver.
In the fruit ﬂy, prolonged overnight fasting promotes a recycling process inside cells called autophagy.
- Autophagy mostly occurs at night and is modulated by the body’s circadian clock.
- Autophagy is essential for the ﬁtness and survival of neuron.
It has also been shown to cause a remodelling of the gut microbiome increasing Bacteria diversity.