What Health Benefits Does Fasting Have Besides Weight Loss?

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What Health Benefits Does Fasting have Besides Weight Loss? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, author, celebrity nutrition expert, and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Jason from Facebook asks, what health benefits does fasting have besides weight loss? Hey, it's JJ and today I have my buddy Dr. Will Cole with me to answer this question. He was named one of the top 50 functional medicine and integrative medicine docs in the nation, and he sees patients globally through his virtual clinic. He's also the co host of Goop Fellas podcast and the author of best selling books Ketotarian, the Inflammation Spectrum and the new one Intuitive Fasting. He's also a big peloton enthusiast and I gotta tell you, Will, once I get my output up a little bit.

I'm coming for you.

So stay tuned. We'll be right back with the answer.

Hey, it's J.J. here.

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There are so many exciting health benefits when it comes to fasting beyond weight loss. Even though weight loss and specifically sustainable weight loss is certainly a valiant and exciting benefit of fasting, it's not the only one. And as a functional medicine practitioner, I'm actually more excited by the other ones, by the other health benefits of it. So one of the core. Let's talk about the core mechanisms that are at play when somebody is fasting. Number one, fasting is a way to put your body into a state of nutritional ketosis. With both ketogenic diet and fasting, they both increase beta hydroxybutyrate, which is a ketone body. And in many ways that's why the ketogenic diet, specifically a clean one like ketotarian, is a fasting mimicking. It's a way to mimic a lot of the benefits of fasting without actually fasting. But fasting holds its own as another amazing way. And when worked together, when fused together and eating a clean ketogenic diet and cyclical for many people where you're not always in ketosis and intermittent fasting, I think that is the synergy of all those things really amplifies the benefits of all of them. But anyways, beta hydroxybutyrate isn't just a way to burn fat. Nutritional ketosis is not just a way to burn fat. It's a metabolic state that produces beta hydroxybutyrate, which is known in the scientific literature as the fourth macronutrient. So we have protein, fats, carbs and ketones. Beta hydroxybutyrate is a fuel for our body. It can pass through the blood brain barrier and provide the brain clean fuel. It's been shown to enhance and support bdnf which is brain derived neurotropic factor, as supporting your brain's ability to make new neurons. And also beta hydroxybutyrate has been shown to lower inflammation. It's an epigenetic modulator, which means it does really cool things for our health. And it's a signaling molecule in the body. So it downregulates pro inflammatory pathways like NF, Kappa B, the Cox2 pathway, the NLRP3 inflammasome, all these pro inflammatory cytokine pathways that are high in a lot of people with different autoimmune issues, chronic fatigue syndrome, anxiety and depression, people with inflammatory digestive problems, musculoskeletal inflammation, chronic pain. It down regulates the pro inflammatory pathways. Beta hydroxybutyrate does and increases pro antioxidant and longevity benefits like the AMPK pathway, the NRF2 pathway, these healing anti disease pathways. So that's quite exciting. And it increases autophagy, the state of fasting increases autophagy, which is cellular recycling. Think of it as your body's innate natural anti aging system. And autophagy is upregulated and supported with fasting. And also fasting has been shown to increase stem cells, which you need for regeneration and cell renewal and tissue healing and just healing across the board. And also fasting's been shown to increase mitochondrial biogenesis of new, healthier, more resilient mitochondria, which is our cellular energy factory. So very exciting stuff. It resets the gut microbiome because our microbiome has circadian rhythms throughout the day. So different colony forming units of bacteria are higher in the morning and then other colonies of bacteria are higher in the evening. Fasting has been shown in the scientific literature to reset the balance of the gut microbiome, which is 75% of the immune system. So when you're dealing with inflammation issues or gut health issues or autoimmune, you have to look at where the predominance of these pathophysiologies reside, which is typically at least in part in the gastrointestinal system. So there's so many benefits. Basically, I can summarize it best with Paracelsus. Paracelsus was one of the fathers of modern medicine. He was known as the father of toxicology in the late 1400s, early 1500s in Switzerland. He was known as the Martin Luther of medicine as well because he was reforming medicine. He said fasting was the physician within. I think that summarizes it best. It's the physician within. It's this inner doctor that repairs and heals and renews and rebalances and restores. So that is the far reaching, amazing benefits of fasting beyond weight loss.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.

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