The Science of Fasting - Studies of Russia

Life expectancy is increasing in Western countries.

But unfortunately, the conditions of modern life cause disease. That's why we have invented the term diseases of civilization.

Diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cancer. The number of illnesses is exploding and the consumption of medication as well. The side effects of some of these chemical crutches regularly make news, creating an atmosphere of distrust.

If we talk about treatment through medication, I can say that we have now reached an impasse.

But maybe there's another therapeutic approach. An ancient method praised by religions but long ignored by science. Fasting. In Russia, Germany and the United States. Doctors and biologists already been exploring this possibility for half a century.

We wanted to know if it was visible in the laboratory at the hormonal level.

Calorie restriction has an effect. Can we make it a lot bigger if we starve the organism?

How does fasting work and what kinds of pathology is it useful for? The results are remarkable, especially in the treatment of the disease of the century. This is a new approach to cancer therapy, and some people would call it a complementary approach. The results of this work open up unexpected perspectives and indicate a different approach to disease and treatment. A unique experiment is taking place in the heart of Russia, on the Siberian plains. Here, for the last 15 years, fasting has become a central element of public health policy. That policy is based on 40 years of scientific studies, unknown in the west, which were carried out on thousands of patients in the former Soviet Union. This research gave birth to the rigorous methods which are practiced here. After four hours by bus on a difficult road, Lyubov Baranova reaches the Goryachinsk Sanatorium. She's come on the advice of her brother, who had been treated with a course of fasting. The shores of Lake Baikal are a few hundred yards away. The scenery is idyllic. Goryechinsk is famous for its hot springs and since 1995, for its center for fasting. The cures are covered by state health care and the whole building is reserved for the fasters.

My brother was asthmatic. Sometimes he couldn't breathe. Then he couldn't sleep at night, and he prevented everyone else from sleeping too. After reading an article about fasting, he decided to fast for 21 days. I had a terrible allergy to sweet things like oranges, that sort of thing. I had been treating it for years, but nothing helped. My allergy came back after each treatment. By the seventh day, he was fine. He was in good health. He'd believed that a miracle was possible and this method had cured him. He's fasted several times Since. I was one of the first to come and fast here at Goryachin.

I.

Fasted for 18 days.

Nobody knows how their body is going to react to food deprivation. Fasting is scary. The first stage of the treatment is reassuring newcomers. The patient's involvement is essential.

Very often we get people who have been in hospital. They've had the best clinical examinations, but nothing helped. Fasting is a universal method that can be effective against several diseases. That's why people often come back to sort out their other problems. With us.

The treatment is absolutely drinking water, water and more water for 12 days on average, and nothing else. Some fasts can last for three weeks, depending on the severity and duration of the disease. For chronic conditions, medication is stopped after two or three days. Patients are then placed under medical supervision. This is crucial. A do it yourself approach to fasting is out of the question. The accompaniment of a professional trained in this practice is fundamental.

During fasting, there's no real nutrient deficiency. One can observe a decrease in vitamin C, vitamin D and E and some other components of the metabolism. But these losses are not critical.

In 15 years, 10,000 patients have followed courses of fasting. Here, their medical records are kept in the archives. The patients came seeking treatment for problems of diabetes, asthma, hypertension, rheumatism, allergies and so on. Nearly 2/3 of them saw their symptoms disappear after one or more courses of fasting. They all say that depriving oneself of food is not the hardest part. The sensation of hunger disappears after two or three days. The difficult part is what the people here called the acidosis crisis. Olga has not eaten for five days. She's already been through this phase, which sometimes results in a feeling of weakness, nausea or headaches. It's the price to pay for the adaptation of the organism to this radical change. The body must learn to live off its reserves.

The third day was hard. Now it's more or less okay. My body is getting used to it. Today I feel better, but it's still not great. It's because up to the third day there is a process of elimination and detoxification. That's why it's a bit tough and the patients don't feel very well. After that, it improves. The body cleanses itself and it gets better and better.

According to Russian doctors, this crisis is a key step in the healing process. Analysis of the urine can indicate its peak and its duration. Changing its mode of nutrition makes the acidity of the blood increase.

During the crisis, all diseases get worse and sometimes patients have severe pain, as in the case of Migraine, for example, or pain in the joints in sufferers from gout or arthritis. But it doesn't last very long, usually no more than 24 to 36 hours.

This crisis is a sign of a profound transformation in the body. The organism has to feed on itself. But how can it provide the fuel needed for its survival? The body has three glucose, fats and proteins. The essential fuel is glucose, which the body absolutely needs in order to function. The brain cannot do without it. But after a day of fasting, the glucose supply is exhausted. How does the organism adapt? It soon makes glucose from protein, and particularly from that found in the muscles. It'll also draw on its reserves of fat to create a substitute for glucose. This fasting fuel is known as ketone bodies. It is these ketone bodies that will be the main food supply for the brain. The work is done by the liver, which is a real factory for transformations in the body. After the crisis, the body finds a new equilibrium. There are treatments to help the patients cope better. With the colonic irrigation, body wraps, saunas and massage. The Russian doctors also recommend two to three hours of exercise daily. All converge towards the same goal. To stimulate the organs of elimination, the kidneys, intestines, liver, lungs, skin are set to work. The body must be allowed to eliminate the waste accumulated in the organism.

Today is my fifth day of fasting. Look at my face and my eyes. I look like a young girl. No makeup, nothing. I'm 100% natural.

But even as the body adapts, the head doesn't always follow at the same rhythm. Patients have noticed that the psyche influences the body and can sometimes make it feel needs that it no longer has.

The third day was the most painful. It's not my stomach crying out to eat, it's my head. That's what's difficult. In your head you see crisps, coke and meat. Lots of meat.

When this psychological hunger disappears, the senses are sharpened and a certain sense of euphoria sets in.

I have a feeling of freedom. I've realized that I'm strong. If I can fast, I can do anything.

But how does fasting work? How is it that two thirds of patients feel better? Of course, that figure calls for caution. Is it a placebo effect or an effect of the euphoria that the brain experiences? Or have these changes that everyone describes been actually measured in the body with objective methods? To understand, we must go back 60 years, to the time when the Soviet Union was a fortress and researchers were not allowed to cross the Iron Curtain. The research was conducted in secret laboratories far from the West. As often happens in science, this scientific adventure started with a chance event, which happened to a researcher open to new ideas. In the Kosakov Hospital in Moscow, the chemical straitjacket had replaced the physical one. But the treatment was scarcely more humane. One day, faced with a patient who was prostrate and refusing to eat, a psychiatrist by the name of Yuri Nikolayev broke with tradition. He decided to let the patient follow his instinct instead of obeying the usual protocol of forcing him to eat in his notebooks, the psychiatrist noted with surprise.

From the fifth day, his negativity began to decrease and the patient opened his eyes. On the 10th day, he started to walk, but still didn't speak. On the 15th day, he drank a glass of apple juice left on his nightstand. Then he went for a walk and began to return to social life.

The man eventually recovered. The case was unique. A mentally ill patient treated by fasting, Yuri Nikolaev was surprised by the almost miraculous effectiveness of the treatment. Fifteen years later, he had continued to experiment with it and develop it. The success exceeded his expectations, and the waiting list of patients kept growing. Nikolayev treated schizophrenia, depression, phobias and obsessive syndromes using an average period of fasting of 25 to 30 days, and sometimes even 40. In a small apartment in Moscow, where his father also lived, Nikolayev's son remembers the increasingly strong opposition of the medical world.

The doctors were opposed to fasting because they did not understand the essence of it. People usually think of being hungry as something bad. You need to turn your head back to front to accept the idea that fasting can cure. And it's even more difficult for a doctor than for an ordinary person.

To silence the critics and make scientific history, Nikolayev undertook a vast research program. Physiological and biochemical tests, hormonal parameters, and encephalogram readings were studied during and after fasting. In hundreds of cases. The psychiatrists established a correspondence between the observed changes in the body during fasting and the improvement of the patient.

Fasting has an impact not only on mental illness, but also the entire personality.

The young Dr. Gurvich was part of the research team. He worked for 18 years with the Master.

Fasting has a stimulant and an antidepressant effect. The stimulant effect takes place during the first week of fasting and the antidepressant effect in the first week of starting to eat again. The third type of effect is a calming sedative effect. It can be observed after the crisis of acidosis.

Nikolayev treated 8,000 patients with fasting. With a marked improvement in 70% of cases. Six years later, 47% had maintained that improvement. Some could resume a normal life and raise a family. But there was another surprise. Nikolayev and his team noticed that not only the psyche of patients improved, but also their physical ailments, such as hypertension, arthritis, asthma and eczema. He appealed to the government. The Ministry of Health was skeptical and launched a campaign to check the results. This was in 1973. It conferred the task to several well known doctors. Among them Professor Kokosov and Professor Maximov. Both were military doctors. They obeyed orders.

Until then, I knew nothing about fasting. So I had two objectives. To verify if the method worked and if so, to explain why.

We had to study the secretions of the stomach, liver, pancreas and intestines. The bacterial profile, the level of immunity and the exchange of minerals and vitamins.

The workload kept increasing. With thousands of patients, the researchers confirmed the results of Nikolayev. They compiled precise lists of indications and contraindications for fasting. Indications. Bronchial disorders, cardiovascular disorders, gastrointestinal disorders, Endocrine disorders, Digestive disorders, Bone or joint disorders, Skin disorders, cancers, tuberculosis, diabetes of the type 1, chronic hepatitis, thrombophlebitis, anorexia. But how can you explain the effects of fasting?

Fasting causes a state of stress. This activates sanogenesis, or recovery mechanisms and autoregulatory processes that are usually inactive. Because of our lifestyle.

Stress seems to be the central point. Stress is an adaptive response to environmental change. In this case, food deprivation. Faced with starvation, the body triggers an alert. This sets off hormonal and neuroendocrine changes. The hormones mobilize the body's reserves. Some also have an anti inflammatory effect. For the Russian doctors, it is these self regulatory mechanisms that produce therapeutic effects. Many aspects of blood composition improve. For instance, the levels of glucose, cholesterol, triglyceride and insulin. Meanwhile, the energy expenditure of the body gradually decreases. Breathing and heartbeat slow down and blood pressure drops. The digestive system goes into a state of rest. So if fasting has the ability to stimulate the healing powers of the body, how can we measure that capacity? Professor Osinine is a specialist in bronchial asthma. A student of Kokosov, this pulmonologist has treated nearly 10,000 asthmatic patients through fasting. In 40 years of practice, there's not been a single accident, he confides. Osinine's research has indicated changes in cells in the lung's mucosa. These black cells reveal a presence of histamine which causes a hypersecretion which leads to bronchial spasms. After 12 days of fasting, there is no more histamine. The cells are filled with lipids and the spasms have disappeared.

These data are unique because these particular questions have never been asked. There is no equivalent anywhere in the world. We studied both general changes in the body and local changes. And we saw the disappearance of substances which lead to edema and inflammation.

Bronchial asthma is a chronic disease. It cannot, according to conventional medicine, be healed, but only be contained. Many patients are condemned to rely on inhalers or other treatments that temporarily relieve their symptoms. Osinine's work shows that it's possible to escape this fate. The pulmonologist has also analyzed the long term effects. His study involved nearly 1,000 patients. After seven years, the improvement persisted for 50% of patients, those who adopted appropriate eating habits after the period of fasting. Sometimes several treatments were necessary. 10 to 15% were completely cured. Experimental data was collected from the four corners of the Soviet Union, with one ambition, to establish fasting as part of public health policy. The Academy of Sciences validated the results and published them in impressive collections which have never been translated. Despite the magnitude of this work, which has no parallel elsewhere and the wealth of clinical descriptions and the number of diseases covered, some grey areas still remain.

The lab results show that it works. But why? How do the mechanisms that we call sanogenesis get set in motion? What is sanogenesis? I still don't have an answer to that question.

Could the answer come from researchers in the West? Over here, no state has ever funded that kind of research. The pharmaceutical industry is of course not interested. However, the practice of fasting is growing and has recently made its entry into the the political and scientific arena. The next stop in our journey is Germany. In this country, 15 to 20% of the population claims to have already fasted. The oldest center for fasting was created on the shores of Lake Constance nearly 60 years ago. The motto here is the same as on the shores of Lake Baikal. Eliminate and the elimination is done in a group. The Bushinga Clinic's reputation has crossed frontiers. 2000 people stay here every year. They come to seek relief from chronic illnesses and also for the prevention and control of risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity. Usually, jorgen baal wears a suit and tie. And no one puts a hot water bottle on his liver. Normally he works in a glass tower in Zurich.

I'm a banker and I had to travel in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. If you want to do business there? You must drink vodka and eat fatty food. The effects have accumulated over the years. My liver had grown 7cm and I had very bad blood test results. My GP, who is also a cardiologist, told me, that's enough. Either you change jobs and finish with Moscow. Forget Russia, no more vodka. Or you take up fasting. And personally, I couldn't imagine being able to fast. It seemed impossible for me not to eat, eat anything for three weeks and be hungry all day without a glass of wine. I'm a gourmet. I couldn't do it.

After the first treatment, Mr. Bal's liver shrunk back to its proper size and his blood tests went back to normal. Since then, he keeps an eye on his diet and returns each year to Oberlingen. A spell of fasting resets his counters to zero. No, these are not the traditional glasses of water. As a small departure from the rigors of fasting, a light soup or fruit juice are served twice a day. These 250 calories a day soften the crisis of acidosis and make the first days easier. That is a particular feature of the method developed by Otto Bushinga, the man who created the centre. He was an army medical officer who suffered from rheumatic fever and was sentenced to a wheelchair by doctors in 1918. He recovered with two successive fasts. This dramatic recovery led him to explore the therapeutic possibilities of fasting and create a treatment center. Today it's become a reference. In Germany, treatments last between one and three weeks. Pauline Vallike has come to the Buschinga Clinic for the second time this year. This interpreter, who lives in Switzerland, suffers from severe rheumatism. She has decided to fast for 12 days.

Did I think I wouldn't be able to move anymore? Yes, I did. Last year I really had a moment of despair. I said to myself, I'm still too young to be bedridden. But that was going to be my life, especially since I live alone. I arrived in February stuffed with pain medication. I had been taking antirheumatics. I had been taking cortisone, all the stuff they normally give. And I was exhausted by it all. I felt completely worn out. The fasting has been the opposite of what you might think. Instead of wearing myself out even more, I feel that I'm totally purifying myself. My body has found the energy to bounce back. I'm not saying that I was running and leaping out of the center, but I do feel like my body can now heal itself. I thought I'd always be stuck on Medication, but I'm not. I stopped.

Depending on the severity of the disease and how long it has been established, stopping medication is not always possible. This patient comes twice a year for a stay at the clinic. Suffering from very advanced psoriatic arthritis, he daren't imagine that he'll be completely cured in this case. Dr. Drinder, a rheumatologist who has worked nine years in a university hospital, is trying to reduce the doses of drugs through fasting.

We also know this phenomenon in the case of rheumatoid polyarthritis. It has been shown that when fasting we need less non steroid anti inflammatory drugs. That's a good thing because the side effects of these drugs are not negligible.

Mr. Bal will end his fast tonight. It's a crucial moment. Eating unsuitably and too much would jeopardize the success of the treatment and could even be very dangerous. The body must get used to food slowly, so the period of starting to eat again is tightly controlled, both in Germany and Russia.

Paradise I always look forward to this moment, but in a way I'm pleased. On the other hand, I have some nostalgia because it was a good experience. Anyway, if it's a soup or whatever, I really enjoy it.

Are you impatient or not?

A little bit. Yes, a little bit.

We should be able to lead the healthcare market with fasting as the central element. Today, there is an extraordinarily lucrative market for the treatment of disease, especially chronic diseases. When a diabetic becomes chronic, that is an opening to sell medication for several decades or do operations. So it's quite a fertile market.

Putting fasting at the center of the healthcare market, taking on the chemical monopoly on disease and cutting the profits of the pharmaceutical laboratories. That's a long way off. But in Germany, things are starting to change. Here, for nearly 10 years, in an annex of Berlin's Charite Hospital, the largest public hospital in Europe, one floor of a building is reserved for patients being treated by fasting. A dozen public hospitals do the same. The practice is gradually finding its place in the arsenal of official medicine. Professor Michelson has conducted several scientific studies on fasting. He offers this therapy to patients suffering from rheumatism, metabolic syndrome or heart problems. The treatments are reimbursed by the Social Security system. Nearly 500 patients undergo treatment here every year. Following the Bushinger method. Demand is increasing and the service has to refuse patients for lack of space. Without being aware of the Russians work, Michelsen has also measured hormonal changes in the body.

In many studies on Patients, we found the presence of epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine, leptin and serotonin. That is to say, hormones that have a strong regulatory influence on the metabolism and also influence mood.

The level of serotonin, often called happiness hormone, is increased. Like the Russian psychiatrists, Michelson has seen an improvement in mood in patients who fast. He also noticed a reduction of pain and an improved sensitivity of the insulin receptors. He found that fasters showed an increased readiness to adopt a healthier lifestyle after the fast, which would be conducive to maintaining good health.

If I had been studying a new drug and got these results, I would certainly be getting calls every day with proposals, financial aid and money for research. But when it comes to fasting, people just say, that's interesting, but there is no real encouragement for the research. It has to change. It's very easy for critics and skeptics to say that there are not enough studies when we know that no funding is granted for just those studies.

Michelsen is no longer focusing on the fundamental mechanisms of fasting. As a physician confronted every day with an increasing number of chronic diseases, it's in this area that he particularly sees a need.

We need two or three major serious studies, I'd say, for rheumatism and rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes and hypertension. Three really convincing bits of research.

Which.

Would show that fasting has its place in therapy just as much as drugs.

It would take millions of euros. But the funds are not exactly queuing up at the door of Michelson's laboratory. On the other hand, critics of fasting continue to brandish a compelling Fasting is dangerous. So what are the facts? How can we know the body's limits for fasting? It's impossible to conduct such experiments on humans for obvious ethical reasons. But the study of wildlife can provide an answer. That answer will throw a remarkable light on the mystery of its mechanisms. But let's not jump ahead. In the frozen lands of the Antarctic continent, there's a strange bird that's fascinated scientists for decades. The male emperor penguin practices fasting spontaneously in his colony on the ice. While he's sitting on the egg, waiting for the female to return, the male is able to go without food for as much as four months. This extraordinary faculty has always amazed Yvonne Lemaux. Early on, the researcher asked himself.

Is.

The emperor penguin a professional faster with mechanisms that don't exist in man or in other animals?

In his CNRS laboratory in Strasbourg, Yvonne Le MAU brought together that has been written in the west on the subject, but he couldn't find the answer. However, there are a few certainties. Fasting can be dangerous because as the body feeds on its own resources, it's using up its reserves of protein. But the muscles are composed of protein and the heart is a muscle. When half of the proteins have disappeared, death ensues. Yvonne Le Maui and his colleagues decided to measure the percentage of protein used up by the penguins during fasting. This figure is critical to determining the limits of what is possible. The result was remarkable. During most of their fast, Proteins provided only 4% of their daily energy expenditure. Fats provided 96%. The body is perfect. It saves its proteins. We can divide the fasting process into three phases. Remember, the body depletes its reserves of glucose within 24 hours. From then on, it produces it from its protein reserves. A second phase starts in which it economizes on protein and makes use of lipids instead. This phase can last for a long time. Depending on the supply of fat available in penguins, it can last for 100 days without problems. But little by little, the fat reserves are depleted. When 80% of the stock of fat has gone, the proteins are no longer saved. The animal enters phase three and must eat before it's too late. But do other animals have the same mechanism? Jean Patrice Robin, who works with Yvonne Le MAU, is conducting an experiment with rats, animals that don't have the reputation of being professional fasters. They're weighed daily and their urine is sampled. How will the rats adapt to fasting? Will their proteins run out faster than those of the penguins? Surprisingly enough, the results are similar. During phase two, the rat saves its proteins in the same manner as the penguin. So there's no difference. A basic fasting mechanism, which allows the individual to survive long periods of starvation, is a common mechanism. This observation opens up unexpected perspectives with huge implications.

If the mechanism is common, it means that this mechanism has existed ever since there have been animals on Earth. And we can see that man has the same capabilities. So fasting, instead of being something dangerous, is an adaptation which has existed from the earliest days of life on Earth and which, at least within the limits we have identified, presents no danger.

The ability to fast must have been a coping mechanism shaped by evolutionary history. On that scale, there's not much of a gap between penguins and man. Scientific research has shown that an adult 1 meter 70 tall, weighing 70 kilos has around 15 kilos of fat reserves, enough for a healthy person to keep going for 40 days.

From the perspective of evolution, it is likely that survival Normally involved periods of fasting. The situation we have today with regular meals and a well stocked fridge, is a historical anomaly. So it's not surprising that the body encounters difficulties when it doesn't fast and eats constantly. Our genetic heritage appears to be less adapted to this situation than it is to fasting.

So it seems that our body is better equipped to deal with lack of food than excess. So does fasting activate atavistic reflexes rooted in the body's memory? If that hypothesis is valid and the ability to fast is inherited from our evolution, it must be observable in the genetic code. The memory should be inscribed there. But who would be crazy enough to try and find what no one is looking for? Valter Longo is a young Italian researcher working in a laboratory at usc, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. His field is gerontology, the mysteries of aging. At 16, he emigrated to the United States in the hope of becoming a rock star. Now he's an internationally renowned biologist. Welcome to California. We're not far now from the countdown. Like all gerontologists, Valtolongo has a goal. Delaying chronic diseases that appear with age, such as Alzheimer's and cancer, and generally slowing down the effects of aging. Researchers have shown that reducing the food supply of an animal over a long period allows it to live a longer and healthier life. Longo is aware of that.

Oh, good.

One day, he decided to take a decisive step. Why not try the extreme form of caloric restriction, fasting? The idea seemed ludicrous. Good job, especially in those sophisticated laboratories in California. But not too long ago, he had an intuition that fasting might protect the body against all sorts of toxins. He would test it with one of the most top secrets of all chemotherapy, the poison for destroying cancer. He took mice with cancer and separated them into two groups. One group was fed normally. The second group fasted for 48 hours.

So then I convinced a few graduate students that first thought it was a crazy idea because it's very counterintuitive. You think you starve something and it's going to become weaker, Right? It's hard to, especially for somebody young, but even for somebody very experienced. Our own colleagues, it's hard to imagine how you can starve something and that becomes stronger.

He then injected the mice with high doses of chemotherapy, doses three to five times higher than those allowed in humans. Doses that would cause devastating, devastating side effects. Would the mice be able to deal with that treatment? Would there be a difference between those who fasted and the others? Longo was away When a colleague told him the results.

And she called me up and she said, you won't believe the results. It looks like all the mice are alive, and all the mice on the normal diet are dead. So, of course, I was very happy because it was more than I was expecting. And so I asked her to repeat it, and I asked the people here to repeat it. And both of them came back with exactly the same results.

This is a video showing the behavior.

Of the two groups treated with temozolamide. In these images, filmed by the laboratory, the differences between the two groups of mice are obvious. On the one side, those who fasted seemed perfectly healthy. They move normally, their hair is smooth, Their tissues are not damaged, and their cognitive functions seem intact. Here on the right are the mice who ate normally. In the end, only 35% survived. They're in bad shape, and they just lie prostrate in their cages. Detailed examinations showed that their heart and brain were also affected. The news was a bombshell. As soon as the study was published in a scientific journal, the press was talking about it. The results, for the moment, only concern mice. No matter. The journalists spread the word. Fasting protects from the side effects of chemotherapy. This is the norris hospital in los angeles, One of the largest anti cancer institutions in the United States, where 200 therapeutic trials are conducted each year. Here, they took the discovery very seriously. The hospital board decided to launch a clinical trial on patients without delay. Dr. Tanja Dorf is supervising it. The young oncologist is enthusiastic. The people fighting cancer in the front line know that they need new strategies.

I've always felt that it's so unfortunate.

That our tools for treating cancer are destructive.

They attack anything that's growing quickly.

They're very indiscriminate, and we're developing better targeted therapies.

But I think it makes a lot of sense to try to protect the body and maximize the damage done to.

The cancer and minimize the harm done.

To the normal body.

But we should be cautious. Not many patients have been recruited yet. This patient has fasted for 24 hours. Others have done 48 hours. No longer. For now, the first step is to prove that fasting is not dangerous for cancer patients. For this revolutionary approach goes against official recommendations which prescribe the opposite. An increase in calories and protein before each chemotherapy session. The experiment needs to gradually expand to larger numbers of patients. There's no lack of money. Public and private funds are flowing in. In fact, fasting is not a substitute for medication. By reducing the side effects, it could even make it possible to increase the doses of chemotherapy. As a doctor at the hospital remarked to us, imagine it's a treatment that's easy to implement and cheap.

This trial has an important proof of concept. If we can demonstrate that patients have.

Less toxicity after they are fast, this.

Will transcend and potentially be applicable to many patients getting cancer therapy, not just one disease, but maybe the whole spectrum of cancer treatment.

Obviously, the clinical trials will take time, but when your life is in the balance, it's hard to accept these slow protocols. Nora quinn is not waiting, Even though she's anything but impulsive. This county judge from los angeles wanted to tell us her story and at the same time, meet the scientist who has restored hope for her. As she says. When she read an article in the Los angeles times describing the work of longo, Nora quinn made her decision. She had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

If I'd waited for them to go through the human trials process, it would have been 10 years later I'd be dead from breast cancer. So since I had to start chemotherapy, then I couldn't wait, and I was very lucky. My oncologist was open to the idea. She didn't encourage me to do it, but she didn't say no. She said, if you want to fast, go ahead, do it, Because I don't think it'll make any difference, but go ahead and do it.

Nora quinn had to complete five chemotherapy sessions. She was afraid of the side effects, Especially the disturbance of her cognitive functions. Under the supervision of a doctor friend, she fasted five days before the first chemotherapy. She felt good and could continue working for the next two sessions. Her oncologist persuaded her not to fast. She reacted very badly to the chemotherapy. She felt so bad that she decided to fast before the last two chemo sessions. Again, she felt much better.

There's no question in my mind that I came out of the treatment with fewer side effects and less long term fatigue and chemo brain than my friends who did not fast who went through similar rounds of chemotherapy. There's no question in my mind.

Nora quinn is not the only patient to have fasted spontaneously. Among the 30 people who've tried it, the norris hospital was able to take a sample group of 10, see their medical records, and obtain their analysis. Nora quinn was part of that study. The results confirmed those observed in mice. The fasting made chemotherapy more bearable. Fatigue, weakness, nausea, and headaches were significantly reduced. But if fasting protects the potentially devastating effects of chemotherapy, how does it affect the chemo itself? Does it make it more effective or not? Before Answering this crucial question, we need to first understand the mechanisms by which fasting protects healthy cells. Does fasting cause a change in gene expression? Longo selected cells from the liver, heart and muscles. If we unravel the DNA strands, here are the genes. These genes are directing the work of the cell. Their expression is normal. After two days of fasting, Longot observed a radical change in in the expression of the genes. Some were overexpressed, others under expressed. The genes had modified the cells functions, putting them in protection mode. It was a total transformation, which happened very quickly, as if this ability came from an ancient genetic memory.

The normal cells, having learned all the lessons in those 3 billion years, enter a protective mode. They have to, because there is low glucose, low nutrients, they have to stand by and stay as protected as possible. And chemotherapy is one of the things they have to be protected against.

So the cells protect themselves as an atavistic reflex. Yvonne Mao, the penguin specialist, had put us on that track. But if fasting protects healthy cells, doesn't it also protect cancer cells? If so, Longo's whole thesis collapses. Let's compare a cancer cell with a normal cell. After two days of fasting, the genes of the cancer cell are expressed in the opposite way to those of the healthy cell. As the cancer cells have undergone genetic mutations, they've lost the evolutionary memory and the protection mechanisms do not occur.

The cancer cells hate this low glucose, low growth factor environment. And not only they do not become protected, they become more sensitive to chemotherapy. In fact, even in the absence of chemotherapy, they can die, or certainly their growth can be reduced. And so fasting can slow their growth even without chemotherapy.

Even without chemotherapy, we were told for cancer cells, fasting is a nightmare.

I recently presented one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. And I basically I challenged the executive of the company to come up with a cocktail of drug, not just a single drug, but a cocktail of drug that will have more potent effects in general than fasting will have.

The question is, why would you want to deal on fast food when you can get a deal? Are we ready to see the world differently? Now carry out three medium pizza. Imagine that consumption wasn't the pillar of our economy. Imagine that doing without was not considered a failure. Are we ready, as Nikolayev's son put it, to turn our heads back to front?

Give me two bucks and it's all for three items.

Two bucks.

Now that's a deal. Today, Alexei Kokosov continues Nikolayev's adventure. But times are hard, hard. The fall of the Soviet regime in the 90s disrupted the public health system. A course of fasting now has to be paid for, and it's too expensive for many Russians. But there's still a place on this earth, hours by plane from any major city, where the state actually encountered encourages and develops the practice of fasting. On his way to the Goryachinsk Sanatorium, which is celebrating its 200 years of existence, Kokosov meets up with his former student, Dr. Betayeva. Kokosov has trained more than 100 doctors in Siberia. Does that seem strange? Here, resources are limited and there's a fragile ecological balance. Frugality is a necessity. So fasting doesn't seem crazy. It isn't seen as a punishment. Abstinence is given its rightful place. The Minister of Health, who is a physician himself and a keen defender of fasting, provides enthusiastic support for the practice. Ura.

Ura. Ura.

Ura. Ura. Ura. Maybe this little republic should make us reconsider our hesitations and reconsider our healthcare model, which often seems to see disease as a marketing opportunity and make us think twice about the mirage of growth without limits, when evolution itself has programmed us to cope with deprivation.

Sa.

Sam.