Intermittent Fasting: Living Healthier, Longer
As many of you know, I'm extremely passionate about entrepreneurship. I spend a lot of time reading about the latest startup news and listening to Podcasts. A great one comes from the Andreessen Horowitz company, a16z. Recently I came across a really great episode about health, and wanted to share my opinions on it! You can find the episode here.
There has been a long trend of scientists studying what causes us to age, and there is a large body of evidence that it has to do with the accumulation of senescent cells in the body. These build up with age and after there has been some significant damage done to our DNA. There has been treatment done on mice in a lab where they "reset" these mice by eliminating these cells. The mice are very rejuvenated after treatment and live 10-15% longer. Mice studies often discourage people, but the reason they are done is that mice are very similar biologically to humans. So, this is extremely promising.
An opinion of mine has to do with a recent diet trend: Intermittent Fasting. For those of you who are not familiar with this, intermittent fasting protocols suggest that you incorporate scheduled fasting into your diet. There are a few protocols: 16/8, Warrior Diet, and 5/2. 16/8 suggests that every day you only eat in an eight-hour window, which is actually very easy to accomplish you simply skip breakfast. The warrior diet is a bit more extreme and suggests that you only have one large meal a day. 5/2 suggests that you eat normally all week but do two 24 hours fasts every week. My favorite is clearly 16/8 — it's easiest.
People are crazy about this diet because it's been proven to help with weight loss, but there's much more to it. When your body isn't in a "fed" state, it has the opportunity to spend more effort detoxifying the body, especially by increasing the rate of apoptosis. Apoptosis is a natural process in the body where it will "kill" dead, cancerous, or useless cells — like senescent cells.
The tough part about longevity studies with humans is that you need to observe a complete life, so it takes 70-100 years! While this is simply a hunch, I think these recent developments may suggest that intermittent fasting could positively impact your longevity, helping you live healthier for longer.
What do you think?
There has been a long trend of scientists studying what causes us to age, and there is a large body of evidence that it has to do with the accumulation of senescent cells in the body. These build up with age and after there has been some significant damage done to our DNA. There has been treatment done on mice in a lab where they "reset" these mice by eliminating these cells. The mice are very rejuvenated after treatment and live 10-15% longer. Mice studies often discourage people, but the reason they are done is that mice are very similar biologically to humans. So, this is extremely promising.
An opinion of mine has to do with a recent diet trend: Intermittent Fasting. For those of you who are not familiar with this, intermittent fasting protocols suggest that you incorporate scheduled fasting into your diet. There are a few protocols: 16/8, Warrior Diet, and 5/2. 16/8 suggests that every day you only eat in an eight-hour window, which is actually very easy to accomplish you simply skip breakfast. The warrior diet is a bit more extreme and suggests that you only have one large meal a day. 5/2 suggests that you eat normally all week but do two 24 hours fasts every week. My favorite is clearly 16/8 — it's easiest.
People are crazy about this diet because it's been proven to help with weight loss, but there's much more to it. When your body isn't in a "fed" state, it has the opportunity to spend more effort detoxifying the body, especially by increasing the rate of apoptosis. Apoptosis is a natural process in the body where it will "kill" dead, cancerous, or useless cells — like senescent cells.
The tough part about longevity studies with humans is that you need to observe a complete life, so it takes 70-100 years! While this is simply a hunch, I think these recent developments may suggest that intermittent fasting could positively impact your longevity, helping you live healthier for longer.
What do you think?
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