Researchers Work on Getting
Intermittent Fasting FDA Approved as Adjunct Cancer Treatment to Improve
Long-Term Survival Rates
July 03, 2015
Story at-a-glance
Time-restricted eating has been shown to prevent and
reverse obesity and related metabolic dysfunction
Fasting helps “starve” cancer cells, simultaneously
protecting cells from chemotherapy toxicity.
Researchers are now seeking FDA approval for
intermittent fasting (IF) as an adjunct to augment
cancer treatments
In a human pilot study, cycles of monthly five-day
long calorie restriction decreased risk factors and
biomarkers for aging, diabetes, cardiovascular
disease, and cancer
By Dr. Mercola
Research1
published in the journal Cell Metabolism concluded that
time-restricted eating not only prevented but also reversed
obesity and related metabolic dysfunction.
Indeed,
intermittent fasting is one of the most effective
interventions I’ve found to reverse insulin resistance, shed
excess weight, and improve body composition.2
Two core mechanisms responsible for these benefits are:
Improved insulin and leptin sensitivity
Triggering your body to more effectively burn fat for
fuel
Intermittent fasting also has other health benefits that can
be valuable for just about anyone—including increased longevity
and neuroprotective benefits—but if you’re not insulin
resistant, it’s not as crucial.
If you’re among the minority of Americans who do not struggle
with insulin resistance, then my general recommendation is to
simply avoid eating at least three hours before bedtime. That
automatically allows you to “fast” for at least 11 hours or
longer depending on if and when you eat breakfast.
Efforts to Develop Intermittent Fasting as an FDA-Approved
Cancer Treatment Underway
Interestingly, one research group is reportedly working on
getting intermittent fasting approved by the US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) as an adjunct therapy for cancer patients.
Earlier research has demonstrated that calorie restriction
helps extend the lifespan of animals by improving insulin
sensitivity and inhibiting the
mTOR pathway. Fasting has also been shown to “starve” cancer
cells while simultaneously protecting cells from chemotherapy
toxicity.
Intermittent fasting—which is easier to comply with—has been
found to have very similar effects, and researchers are now
looking at using intermittent fasting to augment cancer
treatments and improve long-term survival rates.3
One recent study,4
published in the journal Cell Metabolism, found that
bimonthly cycles of four-day long low-calorie intake produced
multi-system regeneration in mice.
Visceral belly fat was reduced, and the risk for cancer and
inflammatory diseases declined. Meanwhile, immune and brain
function improved, and lifespan was increased. In the mouse
brain, neurons were regenerated, improving learning and memory.
“The mouse tests were part of a three-tiered study on
periodic fasting's effects - testing yeast, mice and humans.
Mice, which have relatively short life spans, provided
details about fasting's lifelong effects.
Yeast, which are simpler organisms, allowed
researchers to uncover the biological mechanisms that
fasting triggers at a cellular level. And a pilot study in
humans found evidence that the mouse and yeast studies were,
indeed, applicable to humans...
In a pilot human trial, three cycles of a similar
diet given to 19 subjects once a month for five days
decreased risk factors and biomarkers for aging, diabetes,
cardiovascular disease and cancer with no major adverse side
effects.”
Intermittent Fasting Reprograms Your Body to Age Slower and
Rejuvenate Faster
In the human pilot study, the participants’ calorie intake
was reduced to 34-54 percent of their normal for a period of
five days once a month. The meals had a nutrient composition of:
9-10 percent proteins
34–47 percent carbohydrates
44–56 percent fat
One of the ways intermittent calorie restriction appears to
reduce cancer risk is by decreasing IGF-1—a hormone linked to
aging and cancer susceptibility. According to co-author Valter
Longo:7
“Strict fasting is hard for people to stick to, and
it can also be dangerous, so we developed a complex diet
that triggers the same effects in the body. I’ve personally
tried both, and the fasting mimicking diet (FMD) is a lot
easier and also a lot safer.
It’s about reprogramming the body so it enters a
slower aging mode, but also rejuvenating it through stem
cell-based regeneration. It’s not a typical diet because it
isn’t something you need to stay on.”
As reported by the University of Southern California:8
“Longo believes that for most normal people, the FMD
can be done every three to six months, depending on the
abdominal circumference and health status.
For obese subjects or those with elevated disease
risk factors, the FMD could be recommended by the physician
as often as once every two weeks. His group is testing its
effect in a randomized clinical trial, which will be
completed soon, with more than 70 subjects.
‘If the results remain as positive as the current
ones, I believe this FMD will represent the first safe and
effective intervention to promote positive changes
associated with longevity and health span, which can be
recommended by a physician,’ Longo said.
‘We will soon meet with FDA officers to pursue
several FDA claims for disease prevention and treatment.’”
How Fasting Affects Your Body
Researchers have repeatedly and consistently concluded that
fasting—which includes not only eating less food overall, but
also eating less frequently—can have a beneficial
effect on a wide array of biological functions and systems.
One 2013 review9
found a broad range of therapeutic potential of intermittent
fasting, even when total calorie intake per day did not change,
or was only slightly reduced. Research included in that review,
and other published studies, indicate that intermittent fasting
can help:
Limit inflammation; reduce oxidative stress and
cellular damage
Promote
human growth hormone production (HGH). Fasting can
raise HGH by as much as 1,300 percent in women and 2,000
percent in men.11
HGH plays an important part in health, fitness, and
slowing the aging process. It’s also a fat-burning
hormone
Lower triglyceride levels and improve other
biomarkers of disease
Boost production of
brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF),
stimulating the release of new brain cells and
triggering brain chemicals that protect against changes
associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
(Alternate-day fasting—restricting your meals on fasting
days to about 600 calories—can boost BDNF by 50 to 400
percent, depending on the region of the brain.12
Choosing an Intermittent Fasting Plan
There are a variety of intermittent fasting schedules, and
the ideal one is the one you will actually follow. As a general
rule, it involves cutting calories in whole or in part, either a
couple of days per week, every other day, or even daily. The one
I recommend and have personally used involves restricting your
daily eating to an eating window of 6-8 hours.
Compliance is a critical factor in any of these approaches and
it seems this is one of the easiest intermittent fasting
schedules to implement and maintain—especially once your body
has shifted over to burning fat instead of sugar as its primary
fuel.
Fat, being a slow-burning fuel, allows you to keep going
without suffering from the dramatic energy crashes associated
with sugar. And, if you’re not hungry, then not eating for
several hours is no big deal. If you’re insulin/leptin
resistant, I recommend doing this every day until your weight,
blood pressure, cholesterol ratios and/or diabetes normalizes.
At that point, simply do it as often as you need to maintain
your healthy state.
Another popular
intermittent fasting schedule is the 5:2 plan, promoted by
Dr. Michael Mosley in his book, The Fast Diet: Lose Weight,
Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of
Intermittent Fasting.13It involves eating normally for five days per week, and
fasting for two days. On fasting days, he recommends cutting
your food down to one-fourth of your normal daily caloric
intake, or about 600 calories for men and about 500 for women,
along with plenty of water and tea.
It doesn’t matter which days you choose as your fasting days.
Monday can be a good place to start if you’re fired up at the
beginning of a new week or if you’ve “feasted” over the weekend.
On a fasting day, you can spread your 500/600 calories
throughout the day, or you might choose to enjoy them all at an
evening meal. Just find the routine that works best for you.
Dr. Mosley offers three “golden rules” for success:14
Be sensible on non-fasting days. Eat
normally, enjoy treats in moderation, but avoid bingeing.
Watch what you drink. Juices, lattes,
alcohol, fizzy drinks, and smoothies typically contain a
glut of calories and sugar but won’t satisfy your appetite,
so avoid them all.
Try adding another fasting day. Go for
a 4:3 pattern (four days of normal eating, three days of
reduced calories).
A third variation that is quite common is the
alternate day fast. This fasting protocol is exactly as it
sounds: one day off, one day on. The drawback is that it
requires you to go to bed with an empty stomach every other day,
which can be tough for most people—at least initially. This
plan, and the science behind it, is detailed in Dr. Krista
Varady’s book The Every-Other-Day Diet:The Diet
That Lets You Eat All You Want (Half the Time) and Keep the
Weight Off.
Dr. Varady’s research shows that alternate-day fasting, where
you consume about 500 calories on fasting days and can eat
whatever you want on non-fasting days, works equally well for
weight loss as complete fasting, and it’s a lot easier to
maintain this type of modified fasting regimen.
As an assistant professor of kinesiology and nutrition at the
University of Illinois, Dr. Varady has conducted many studies on
intermittent fasting. In one of her studies, they found that
splitting the 500 calorie meal up into multiple smaller meals
throughout the day was not as successful as eating just
one meal, once a day. So ideally, eat your low-calorie fasting
day meal either for lunch or dinner. The main problem relates to
compliance. If you’re truly eating just 500 calories in a day,
you will lose weight. But when eating tiny amounts of food
multiple times a day, you’re far more inclined to want more, so
the cheat rate dramatically increases.
Her research also refutes concerns that intermittent fasting
may result in loss of lean body mass.15
I have not found this to be true, and according to Dr. Varady’s
research, 90 percent of the weight people lose is body fat, with
only 10 percent being lean body mass.16
Moving throughout the day and consuming an appropriate
amount of high quality
protein will also help minimize loss of muscle mass.
Intermittent Fasting versus Eating Six Small Meals a Day
Traditionally, three square meals a day has been considered
key for weight management, but while this may help stabilize
blood sugar and insulin levels for some people, it’s important
to realize that, historically, humans simply did not have access
to food 24/7. The most obvious risk with spreading out your
meals to morning, noon, and evening is overeating. Spreading it
out over six meals a day magnifies that risk even more—unless
you’re truly mindful of eating very, very small snacks
or meals.
Avoiding
high-sugar foods is also key for both general health and
weight loss, no matter how many meals a day you eat. And, one of
the near-automatic side effects of eating a diet higher in
healthy fat and low in sugars is decreased hunger and cravings.
So if you’re getting enough healthy fat in your diet, you may
not be hungry enough to actually eat six times a day! The issue
of which is better—intermittent fasting or eating six small
meals a day—was recently addressed in a US News article,17
which states:
“Even if you consume the same amount of calories you
would otherwise, eating six times a day may help you
maintain more metabolism-revving muscle mass than you would
if you ate less often, according to a 2015 study published
in Nutrition Research. Yet, while eating six meals a day
might sound like a weight-loss dream, it’s actually a lot of
work – and may not be right for everyone, [Martha Belury,
professor of human nutrition at The Ohio State University]
says.
People who are great with routines respond well to
the six-a-day meal plan, for example, but it can be
impractical for those who aren’t up for prepping and packing
meals to eat throughout the day, at least a few of them at
the office. After all, if the goal is weight loss, the meals
shouldn’t be drive-thru or candy bars. They need to be
home-cooked and balanced, she says. And each meal needs to
be small; otherwise, you could end up overeating and packing
on the pounds.”
How to Radically Increase Your Intermittent Fasting Success
If the very thought of fasting makes you shudder with
anxiety, then you’re in luck!
EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) practitioner Julie
Schiffman has a great video for reducing your anxiety about
fasting. EFT is a powerful energy psychology tool that has
helped hundreds of thousands overcome emotional challenges. It
uses acupuncture meridians to help neutralize electrical brain
disturbances that emotional wounding can cause. I strongly
recommend tapping along with her if you have any hesitation at
all about fasting. Being in the right mindset is 90 percent of
the challenge, and EFT is a highly effective tool toward that
end.