The FastDay Forum

Hi izzy, sorry you are having problem sleeping, I sympathize...

I have no idea about JUDDD or about RA, but googling 'inflammation fasting' brings up loads of websites with unprovable claims, and one study here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21527899. It's on mice (poor things) and shows that fasting reduced inflammation for mice on a low fat diet but not for mice on a high fat diet.

Here is something Brad Pilon wrote linking depression, inflammation and the (beneficial) effect of IF: http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/interm ... tion-link/. He mentions sleeping problems too!

And best of all of course is our home-grown topic here on 'IF and inflammation': viewtopic.php?f=10&t=636.

http://www.johnsonupdaydowndaydiet.com/ ... -diet.html with the inevitable grinning American doctor.

Some science at www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jpa/23/1/23_1_19/_article concluded "The study showed that under a low energy diet a reduction of disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis was accompanied with a reduction of the urinary pentosidine."

This was the only study my search for "rheumatoid arthritis fasting calorie restriction" turned up, but it does directly address the question. 10 patients with RA were calorie restricted for periods of about a week interspersed with fasts of 3-5 days for a total of 54 days. On a fasting day, only vegetable soup (720 kcal/day) was served (some fast !!). Calorie restricted days were ~1000 calories. Participants lost ~10% of their body weight, but were on average only 51 kg / 112 lb / 8 stone to start with (Japanese women avge age 60).

The "Lansbury Index" or RA symptoms was assessed - "Before caloric restriction (day 0), the mean value of LI was 46.2 +/- 7.9%. It decreased significantly during the study: 39.7 +/- 6.4% (P,0.05 vs. day 0) on day 25, and 37.6 +/- 7.5% (P,0.05 vs. day 0) on day 54

Spot on Phil, so that proves IF reduces RA then (until another study says something different anyway ). And helpful to know how you found it - you are amazing at digging up these results. I didn't realise it was just that you were better with Google than the rest of us...

Don't know about Phil but I don't use google, I use pubmed! I put my search terms into pubmed and also use the related citations link with any interesting studies which often brings up more stuff.

I usually filter the results to see only those papers with abstracts and in humans.

Thanks for the tip Caroline. Now I know!

I have been on 5:2 for a month now. I have both High BP and RA. Haven't been to my GP to have BP checked but can let you know if I do have any major change in either condition. It's interesting.

I'm always a bit wary of "mean" figures, when it comes to people and illnesses, especially illnesses like RA, which can show varying symptoms and markers between sufferers

They quote a mean and a range, "the mean value of LI was 46.2 +/- 7.9%. It decreased significantly during the study: 39.7 +/- 6.4% (P,0.05 vs. day 0) on day 25"

The +/- 7.9% and +/- 6.4% illustrate the variabilities.

The P<0.05 means that there is less than 5% chance that this occurred randomly, ie it is 95% certain that the mean value actually reduced for real.

Somebody must have scored lower symptoms for the mean to move, and as the range stayed the same it would appear that the group as a whole improved - so if someone stayed the same or got worse someone else did a lot better to compensate.

I woke up this morning and felt the "wave" of muscle pain from my RA has restarted. I'm not on any RA meds at the moment due to surgery. Thinking back, I haven't felt this muscle pain since about 5-6 days after getting off Crestor.

This is my 3rd week on 5:2, so I don't think its been long enough to make a difference with the inflammation. I'm hoping it will, but only time will tell.