Johns Hopkins’ Neuroscientist Explains why Big Pharma does not want You to Fast
No, this is not clickbait. This is pure science. But what is skipping food got to do with Big Pharma, you would ask? Food, or lack of it impacts health; a healthy mind and body - or lack of diseases - impacts Big Pharma. Skipping meals doesn’t take a toll on your system, but it does take a toll on price-gouging Big Pharma’s fat profits.
Dr. Mark Mattson, Chief of the Laboratory of Neuroscience at the National Institute of Aging, as well as professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, analyzed how fasting twice a week could help reduce the risk of developing neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. He discussed his findings, as well as the previously discovered health benefits of fasting, during a TED talk.
This is what he has to say:
“I just want to point out that there’s evidence not just from animals but from humans that fasting is good for the body. It will reduce inflammation. It will reduce oxidative stress in organ systems throughout the body. And one thing that happens when you fast that does not happen when you eat three meals a day is that your energy metabolism shifts so that you start burning fats.
“The fasting is a mild energetic stress and the neurons respond adaptively by increasing mitochondria which helps them produce more energy and… by increasing the number of mitochondria and neurons it can increase the ability of the neurons to form and maintain synapses and thereby increase learning and memory ability. In addition to the increasing neurotrophic factors and increasing the energy neuronal bioenergetics if you will, we have found that intermittent fasting will enhance the ability of your nerve cells to repair DNA.”
The intermittent fasting advocated by Dr. Mattson for overall brain health is linked to how humankind has evolved. There are reasons why the intermittent shocks of hunger do a brain good. He explains:
"Our ancestors undoubtedly had to go without food for stretches of time. It hasn't been that long since humanity lacked regular supplies of food. When you search for food when you're hungry, the brain is really engaged. The individuals who survive the best—the ones whose brains are more attuned to predators and who can remember where food sources are—are the ones who've survived."
Why then, don't you hear about the importance of fasting - instead made to believe all of its ill effects? Because you are being told so with ‘evidence’ by countless ‘studies’ sponsored and manipulated by the Big Pharma for their own evil motives.
Dr. Mark Mattson elaborates:
“There are a lot of pressures to have that eating pattern [three meals a day plus snacks]. There’s a lot of money involved. The food industry — are they going to make money from skipping breakfast like I did today? No, they’re going to lose money. If people fast, the food industry loses money. What about the pharmaceutical industries? What if people do intermittent fasting and exercise periodically and they are very healthy, is the pharmaceutical industry going to make any money on healthy people?”
Dr. Mark Mattson is not alone in his analysis. Researchers from the University of Southern California have found that fasting triggers stem cell regeneration of damaged, old immune system, and when the body rebounds, it uses stem cells to create new, completely healthy cells.
The authors observed:
“When you starve, the system tries to save energy, and one of the things it can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not needed, especially those that may be damaged. What we started noticing in both our human work and animal work is that the white blood cell count goes down with prolonged fasting. Then when you re-feed, the blood cells come back. So we started thinking, well, where does it come from?”
In 2007, a review of multiple scientific studies was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition which determined that fasting is an effective way to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, as well as have the potential to treat diabetes.
There's a reason why you don't hear about the benefits of fasting more often from the mainstream media, and it's the same reason why you're told to eat at least three meals a day with snacks.
I wish that more people were aware of this metabolic effect and mechanism. When we're young and physically active, we require more energy to act, and eat more. I also reckon that we should be more active, and that people aren't is why they are obese.
However, I noted that my habit of eating immense and frequent meals that I required when I was logging, fishing, and other physically demanding occupations was dramatically counterproductive when I hit my mid-30s, and no matter how hard I worked, I just couldn't burn that food off.
So, I fasted. Rather than eat paltry meals that left me feeling unsatisfied, and yearning for more food in that meal, prompting negative feelings about dieting and cheating, I just stayed hungry, or not eating, until I had a full meal. I found one full meal a day left me plenty of energy for working construction, and each meal was very satisfying, rather than frustrating.
It's hard to convey what a difference my feeling about food and eating has made on my ability to maintain my regimen and weight. I do gain weight in winter, and get back in shape in the summer, because construction work is seasonal, but I reckon that's also a natural cycle, as humans evolved in a seasonal world.
Long story short, it is as different as night and day between fasting and dieting. The latter leaves you struggling and dissatisfied with every meal, while the former does the opposite. Given the very common failure of dieting to deliver satisfactory results, I am confident that the mental discipline necessary to maintaining a regimen in the terrible negative mental state that meals too small to satisfy produces is perhaps the dominant factor.
It's a lot easier to simply refrain from eating, even for days at a time, than it is to eat only unsatisfying meals. When one does eat a fully satisfying meal, but only once a day, eating is a joy, and maintaining a regimen becomes highly positively reinforced by that satisfaction, which is a primal biological feature of being alive.
Fasting works with our natural processes, and dieting against them. This research indicates many more reasons to support that conclusion, as our bodies have many different mechanisms that show positive responses to temporal caloric restriction (fasting).
Thanks!
According to my aunt your body fast every night, that's how the word breakfast came about. You break the fast from dinner time till morning.
Auntie's not wrong, but that's not what this article is about, nor my comment. Have you any thoughts on those matters?
I would only add that since most have gone to snacking before bedtime it's no longer a fast. It may not be promoted by government agencies but if you keep up on what the new trends are it's now called cleansing the body or detoxifying and it's gotten to the point it's so popular, and like anything that gets popular, there are some programs that go to the extreme, hence why you see Dr Oz doing so many shows on the right way to fast or detox.
I figured this out decades ago, mostly because of economic reasons.
I still enjoy food, and its difficult to sustain in winter though. I've lived on one meal a day, often skipping breakfast, with no ill effects, for years at a time.
I find if I can maintain this habit, fasting 16 hours+ without eating, I can easily lose 1KG a month.
interesting
I've been toying with the idea, but my wife (30-year nurse) often discourages me from trying. I didn't realize that Big Pharma was even putting out disinformation about fasting. Can't trust anybody.