The FastDay Forum

A college who had been on 52 for a couple of months had a routine corporate screening which found 'high uric acid' blood levels. Wiki says this can be a result of fasting, and that was the suggested cause. Although symptom free 52 has understandably been dropped. Wonder if anyone had heard similar? Just shows how reactions to fasting are very individual I guess.

[carorees]

There are a lot of causes for high uric acid including rapid weight loss, diet (especially if high in offal, game, anchovies, herring, dried beans, dried peas, mushrooms and other foods), kidney disorders, diuretic medications, high alcohol consumption, underactive thyroid, niacin, or vitamin B3, and obesity. So it surprises me that out of all these, 2 days a week of eating a very low calorie diet was picked as the cause! It would be worth seeing if high uric acid is a known side effect of a VLCD, if not, 5:2 seems an unlikely cause to me. 5:2 is not really fasting in the sense that most people mean it!

+1 to caro. Without knowing what their diet/lifestyle/previous uric levels before 5:2 is/was, hard to pinpoint the 5:2 as the cause... Correlation != causation.

Yeah, maybe it's just me but I suspect the medics would jump at the chance to put IF in the frame. As a group they do hate media inspired 'fads' I'm sure. However I must admit the screening is pretty thorough so probably ruled out most/many explanations. That said no doubt a retest after ceasing 52 would be the only real evidence. It's probably something that's not normally assessed, but hopefully further IF research will rule it out as a cause.

I do find this interesting because before I started this WOE I was getting a sore big toe and thumb and suspected gout. Of course I never rush to doctors, so I have been waiting for another twinge - 5 weeks into 4:3/5:2 I have had no symptoms. I too have underactive thyroid and new doc had lowered my meds, which I have now slightly upped, so maybe that could have something to do with mine. I will see if I get any more twinges and if so will have it assessed....and report in.