While Intermittent fasting may sound like another dieting craze, the practice of routinely not eating and drinking for short periods of time has shown again to lead to potentially better health outcomes.
In a new study, researchers found that cardiac catheterization patients who practiced regular intermittent fasting lived longer than patients who don’t.
In addition, they found that patients who practice intermittent fasting are less likely to be diagnosed with heart failure.
The research was conducted by a team at the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.
In the study, the researchers asked 2,001 patients undergoing cardiac catheterization from 2013 to 2015 a series of lifestyle questions, including whether or not they practiced routine intermittent fasting.
The team has the opportunity to closely study intermittent fasting because a large portion of its patients does it regularly:
a significant portion of Utah’s population belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members typically fast the first Sunday of the month by going without food or drink for two consecutive meals, and thus not eating for the period of about a day.
The researchers then followed up with those patients 4.5 years later and found that routine fasters had a greater survival rate than those who did not.
Because people who fast routinely also are known to engage in other healthy behaviors, the study also evaluated other parameters.
But after correcting for these factors, the team found long-term routine fasting remained a strong predictor of better survival and lower risk of heart failure.
While the study does not show that fasting is the causal effect for better survival, these real-world outcomes in a large population do suggest that fasting may be having an effect and urge continued study of the behavior.
The team says it’s another example of how regularly fasting can lead to better health outcomes and longer lives.
Previous studies about the risk of diabetes and coronary artery disease in patients and found that rates are lower in patients who practice routine intermittent fasting.
Those studies were published in 2008 and 2012 and suggested that the decades-long development of those chronic diseases may be ameliorated by long-term routine fasting.
Why long-term intermittent fasting leads to better health outcomes is still largely unknown, though the team said it could be a host of factors.
Fasting affects a person’s levels of hemoglobin, red blood cell count, human growth hormone, and lowers sodium and bicarbonate levels, while also activating ketosis and autophagy.
All the factors could lead to better heart health and specifically reduce the risk of heart failure and coronary heart disease.
The researchers speculate that fasting routinely over a period of years and even decades conditions the body to activate the beneficial mechanisms of fasting after a shorter length of time than usual.
But they also caution that pregnant and lactating women should not fast, as well as young children and frail older adults.
People who have received an organ transplant, who have a suppressed immune system, who are experiencing acute or severe chronic infections and those with eating disorders should also not fast.
People diagnosed with chronic diseases—especially those who take medications for diabetes, blood pressure, or heart disease—should not fast unless under the close care and supervision of a physician because of the severe adverse effects that medications in combination with fasting can cause, including as hypoglycemia.
The lead author of the study is Benjamin Horne, Ph.D., the director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology.
The study was presented at the 2019 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.
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