The FastDay Forum

Some news from Valter Longo:

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2015/06/ ... 435000614/

Or here:

http://news.usc.edu/82959/diet-that-mim ... low-aging/

And a link to the study:

http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(15)00224-7

[carorees]

Yes, it looks interesting but I had some thoughts. I was surprised at the carb content of the fasting mimic diet (47% of cals) which with an 800 cal allowance for 5 days would surely make people hungrier than if they had gone lower? Also note that the weight loss was very low (3% at the end of 3 months compared with around 3% in under 6 weeks on 5:2). Of course unless someone does the same study with a range of different fasting regimes we won't know whether their findings mean we should swap to 25:5 or stick with 5:2 (or ADF or 16:8 or 19:5 etc etc.). Still, very interesting.

I too thought that the carb percentage seemed high enough to keep hunger an issue. Also would've liked clarification on the proprietary nature of the foods they supplied on fast days. I think it's eventual downfall would be reentering the initial transition days of the 5 day period every month. Better, I think, to have an establish routine (5:2, 4:3...) without such lengthy breaks.

As is so often the case, it all comes down to indentifying an appropriate dose doesn't it?

I'm a bit surprised this research has not prompted more debate on the forum. Maybe it got missed. It sounds like a tough regime and getting the right nutritional intake makes it even harder. I was also surprised at the amount of carbs as a %age, but I guess they were interested in a range of markers other than pure weight loss. I'm interested to know more about their work as it develops.

I'm totally cynical when it comes to anyone turning this into meal replacements though (which they plan) and I found it a real turn off - even though they claim their profits will go to charity.

Why mimic fasting when we do the real thing?

Fully agree, original idea of 5:2 was to make things easy, including no fuss on what you eat

I'm a bit surprised this research has not prompted more debate on the forum. Maybe it got missed. It sounds like a tough regime and getting the right nutritional intake makes it even harder.

I heard about this and dismissed it as it just sound to fussy with the special diet and tough with 5 days in a row. It might appeal to some people out there but I'll stick to the flexibility of 5:2 and ADF.

I'm sure I read about this recently and they were purposefully trying to not lose weight so that the effect could be attributed to fasting alone rather than weight loss. I'm not sure where I saw that (though of course it might be in the original paper, too). I'll hunt around for it.

Here we go: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/1 ... 20950.html

I think what I was remembering was that total calories per month for FMD and controls were the same.

That statement came from the USC link; couldn't find an equivalent phrasing in the actual study.