0:00

Hi. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Enjoy listening to

0:02

Science Vs. This is the show the

0:04

pits facts against for going food. Today,

0:09

we're tackling intermittent fasting.

0:15

Can it make you shed pounds and

0:18

live a healthy a longer life? Intermittent

0:22

Fasting Diet Basically where you don't eat

0:24

for certain period of time. Where do

0:26

you have is really long gap between

0:29

dinner and breakfast or perhaps you just

0:31

eating one meal a day. This is

0:33

also called oh mad get it, one

0:36

meal a day And these fasting diet

0:38

a going bonkers right now. Follow the

0:40

gossip mags and you'll see that celebs

0:43

are all over this. From Chris

0:45

Pratt. I did something called

0:47

intermittent fasting. To Vanessa Hudgens,

0:49

Courtney Katachi in and even

0:51

Hugh Jackman. Every What I

0:53

Do is or eight for eight hours and

0:55

I fast the sixteen. I actually got the

0:58

dog from my Dwayne The Rock Johnson has

1:00

made him on. We

1:03

vast eight up the science on fasting a

1:05

few years ago, but since then I might

1:08

be around fasting. Hasn't been

1:10

slowing. Down. In

1:13

fact it feels like these diets of

1:15

kind of taken on a life of

1:17

their own. Headlines is screaming Quote: I

1:19

did intermittent fasting and it changed my

1:21

life. It's all over tic toc and

1:23

Instagram and podcasts. Tech browse and health

1:25

fluids is caught. Get enough. The

1:27

data behind fasting is so strong. Like

1:30

whose idea was if three meals a

1:32

day anywhere, it's absolutely one meal a

1:34

day. No ifs, ands, or buts, We've

1:36

been hearing that not only does fasting

1:39

wrap up your metabolism and I can

1:41

you shed pounds, but that the benefits

1:43

of fasting go way beyond weight loss.

1:46

Going hungry could be the key to

1:48

a healthier and even longer life. Fasting

1:50

reduces the risk of cancer all time,

1:53

or. So.

1:57

There's. all these claims about how amazing

1:59

fast is for you. But

2:01

then, some research came out

2:03

last week that spoiled the fun, just

2:06

like someone cooking fish in the office

2:08

microwave. Because it suggested

2:10

that intermittent fasting might

2:12

actually be dangerous. An alarming

2:15

new study on intermittent fasting suggests

2:17

that intermittent fasting could lead to

2:19

a 91% higher

2:22

risk of cardiovascular death.

2:24

91%. So

2:27

what's going on here? Today

2:29

on the show, we are dropping our spoon

2:31

back into the science soup to find out,

2:34

one, if you want to lose weight, how

2:36

helpful are these diets? And two,

2:39

can fasting diets make you live longer or

2:42

not? When it comes to

2:45

fasting, there's a lot of... The data

2:47

behind fasting is so strong. But

2:50

then, there's the science. Science

2:54

versus fasting is coming up after

2:57

the break. This

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4:14

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4:16

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4:18

We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.

4:22

Bye. Bye. Bye.

4:25

Bye. Bye. Bye.

4:28

Bye. To

4:30

find out what's going on here, we sent Caitlin

4:32

Suri to the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

4:36

It's our pleasure to welcome you to Birmingham. Caitlin used to be our

4:38

senior producer and she's in Alabama to

4:40

meet researcher Courtney Peterson. Hi.

4:43

Hi. He's going to

4:46

hook Katie up to a state-of-the-art machine to measure

4:48

how her body responds to fasting. And

4:50

because people argue that fasting ramps up your

4:52

fat burning. So this machine is going to

4:55

measure how much fat you're burning. Courtney

4:57

is going to find out if that's

4:59

true. If fasting really does change how

5:01

Katie or anyone else burns fat.

5:04

So we'll have you try 18 hours

5:06

of fasting. Second. First

5:09

up, she took some baseline measurements. Katie

5:11

left the lab, had her final meal,

5:13

rammed a sandwich in my face, and

5:17

stopped eating at 5pm that day. The

5:20

next morning, she headed back to Courtney's lab at

5:22

about 11am. And

5:24

heads out, Katie does not sound

5:26

as chill as Hugh Jackman after she's been

5:29

fasting. I'm

5:31

running late to this test because

5:33

the bloody printer wouldn't work. Then

5:36

I couldn't get a sandwich to have after the test.

5:39

Today I get frustrated and just

5:41

felt moody and

5:43

emotional. I just need

5:45

some ******* sugar in my face, honestly. Now

5:51

that Katie is good and hangry. Katie

5:53

will measure how much fat her body is

5:55

burning. And to do that,

5:58

Courtney puts a weird looking hood contra- over

6:00

Katie's head. To fix it,

6:03

this giant plastic device that kinda

6:05

looks like a space helmet. And

6:07

it's connected to this plastic covering, which as

6:09

you'll see, we'll put the hood over you

6:12

and then we'll tuck the plastic covering around

6:14

your body. That way we create an airtight

6:16

seal. So all the air that

6:18

you breathe in only comes from our tube and all

6:20

the air that you breathe out, we can measure it.

6:22

Nothing getting in or out without you guys measuring

6:24

it. That's the game. That's correct. Right,

6:30

so we're inside the hood. And

6:33

just stay very calm. Breathe

6:36

normally. To

6:38

understand why Katie's breathing is

6:40

important here, you need to

6:42

know that mainly your body burns sugars and

6:45

fats for energy. And when it does that,

6:47

some of that fuel gets converted into

6:49

carbon dioxide, which you breathe out.

6:53

And that is actually what Courtney is measuring

6:55

in that snazzy helmet. She's

6:57

looking for changes in the amount of carbon dioxide that

7:00

Katie is exhaling. The less

7:02

carbon dioxide you breathe out relative to

7:04

oxygen, the more fat you're burning. Weird,

7:08

okay. So before

7:10

Katie was fasting, Courtney could see that about

7:12

half of her energy was coming from burning

7:15

fat. How did

7:17

fasting change that? So on

7:19

day two, after you were fasting for

7:21

nearly, I think it was 18 hours. Yeah, it

7:23

was 18, it was hot. We

7:26

found about 70% of

7:30

what you're burning now is fat. Wow. So you

7:32

had a big increase in your fat burning. So you can

7:34

see these are... Yeah. So at

7:36

the start of the experiment when Katie wasn't fasting, about 50%

7:38

of the energy that she was burning was

7:42

coming from fat. And that went

7:44

up to around 70%. Katie

7:47

has ramped up the amount of fat that she's burning because

7:50

her body started looking for more sugar to burn.

7:52

But because she wasn't

7:54

eating more sugar, her body had

7:57

to look elsewhere for energy. And so it turned

7:59

to the end. fat and started burning

8:01

more of it. Other studies

8:03

have found this kind of thing too. So

8:05

if you've been fasting you really are in the

8:07

fat burning mode and your body kind of

8:10

revs up its ability to burn to it. Yeah

8:13

that fat burning mode doesn't last forever. As

8:15

soon as Katie rips off the hood and

8:19

stuffs her face with a pumpkin

8:22

muffin. I'm so starving. Oh my

8:24

god. Her body gets

8:26

back, it's sugar fix and all

8:28

returns to normal. She starts

8:30

using sugar for energy. But

8:33

the fact that we burn more fats,

8:36

at least while we're fasting, is

8:38

giving the internet some food for thought. Because

8:40

it sounds like this is going to mean that

8:42

you lose a ton of weight. Is that

8:46

true? We

8:48

talked to Krista Varity from the University

8:50

of Illinois Chicago about this. She's

8:52

run trials on weight loss and fasting

8:54

in hundreds of people. Probably more than

8:56

any other researcher out there. And

8:59

Krista told us that yeah, people

9:02

do lose weight on these fasting diets. And

9:05

that's definitely the main thing that we see.

9:07

So there's always like a range. Like some

9:09

people don't lose any weight. But the majority

9:11

of people tend to lose on

9:13

average like 10-15 pounds. So

9:16

for your standard intermittent fasting diet where

9:18

you say skip your breakfast and have

9:21

your first meal at lunchtime, a few

9:23

trials have found that after several months,

9:26

on average, people tend to lose between

9:28

5-15 pounds. So

9:30

that's around 2-7 kilos.

9:34

But every now and then, you'll see

9:36

these dramatic results. So

9:38

for example, she told us about this one person

9:40

who was on this diet for several months, really

9:42

wanted to lose a bunch of weight and lost

9:45

about 60 pounds. They

9:47

were extremely happy. They look like

9:49

an entirely different person. That's really interesting

9:51

to see somebody be transformed. How

9:54

much weight you lose can depend on a bunch of

9:56

things like how heavy you are to start with, what

9:58

you're eating when you're eating. you're not

10:00

fasting and what your eating window is.

10:03

So Courtney told us that there's a growing

10:05

body of good evidence that if you squish

10:07

all of your food into an eight hour

10:10

period, like you're eating from 11 am

10:12

to 7 pm, there's a good chance

10:14

you'll lose weight. But

10:16

this all did make us think, wait

10:19

a sec, are you

10:21

really losing weight because fasting is putting

10:23

you into this special fat burning mode?

10:26

Or could it be that something much simpler

10:29

is going on? You're

10:31

just not eating as much. Because

10:34

if you're not eating for a big chunk of

10:36

the day, then over the course of a week,

10:38

you're probably putting less pies down your pie

10:41

hole than you used to. So

10:43

you're just losing the weight because you're eating

10:45

less. And

10:48

to find out which idea was right, special

10:51

metabolism theory, or you're just eating less,

10:54

Courtney from the lab in Alabama did

10:56

this one small study to see what

10:59

would happen if you got people to

11:01

fast, but didn't change how many calories

11:03

they were eating. So

11:05

these people ate the normal amount of calories

11:07

for five weeks, but they just had to

11:09

down it in a smaller window of time,

11:12

like you do with some of the fasting

11:14

diets. And Courtney made

11:16

sure that she knew what they

11:18

were eating. We had

11:21

all our participants either eat the

11:23

meals in our kitchen, or

11:26

they had to eat their meals on Skype so that

11:28

we could make sure they were actually eating all the

11:30

food that we provided them. Oh my God. Now

11:33

you would think that if there was something

11:35

special about fasting, that people would lose weight,

11:37

even if they were eating the same number

11:39

of calories. Right. But they

11:41

did not lose weight. So

11:44

we now think that this intermittent fasting

11:46

does not help you burn more calories.

11:49

The bottom line, why does Courtney think

11:51

that people drop pounds when it comes

11:53

to fasting? Because

11:56

they're eating less. That's what our data

11:58

suggests. It's simply because they're eating less. us. Several

12:01

studies have now backed up this idea. Okay,

12:04

so what all this means is that when

12:06

you're on a fasting diet, you'll probably find

12:09

yourself eating less. That is,

12:11

unless you have scientists force feeding

12:13

you via Skype. And if we're

12:16

not putting so much crap down our

12:18

trap, or smell it

12:20

down our vollep, not

12:22

so much jelly in our bolly, well

12:26

that's probably the main reason we're losing weight. So

12:29

if you are interested in losing weight,

12:32

this all sounds pretty promising.

12:35

Except for this one little thing, jelly

12:38

is great. And not eating

12:41

sucks. Remember how hard it

12:43

was for Katie? I just need

12:45

some goddamn sugar in my face, honestly. Why

12:48

do people want to do this

12:51

to themselves? So does it

12:53

get any better? Or if you go on

12:55

one of these diets, will you just be miserable and

12:57

hungry? Well,

12:59

the few studies that have trapped

13:01

people's hunger levels during these fasting

13:03

diets actually shows a really mixed

13:06

picture. So sometimes people feel

13:08

fuller as the diet goes on and they

13:10

get used to it, but

13:12

sometimes they just stay hungry.

13:15

Katie kept fasting for about 16 hours each

13:18

day, and she did it for

13:20

three weeks. Three weeks? Three weeks? Brought

13:22

her into the studio. How are you

13:24

finding it? Less

13:26

hangry. Really? Yeah, in the

13:28

beginning I reckon I was

13:31

going to bed pretty hungry. I

13:33

was like, I'm going to chew the

13:35

side of the bed. I'm

13:38

gonna chew on this pillow. So

13:40

now I'm just not as hungry.

13:43

So that's weight loss. But

13:47

while you're digesting that, wellness

13:49

bros and health fluences say

13:51

that fasting can do so much more

13:54

than help you slim down. Some

13:56

people say that with the power of fasting, it

13:58

can help you live longer. and even

14:01

fight cancer. Could fasting really

14:03

do that? Or

14:06

is this diet actually more dangerous

14:08

than we thought? It's all coming up

14:11

after the break. This

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episode is brought to you by Volvo Cars. Distractions

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16:00

Welcome back. Today,

16:05

we're chewing up the research on fasting diets.

16:08

We just found out that fasting can help you lose

16:10

weight. And now we're going to

16:12

tackle some of the bigger claims about this diet. Starting

16:16

with whether fasting can make us live

16:18

a longer and healthier life. Because

16:22

the internet bros and group

16:24

fluences out there say that one of

16:26

the benefits of fasting is that it

16:28

can slow down the aging process. People

16:31

that fast a lot end up

16:33

looking a lot younger than they

16:35

actually are to enhance regeneration, decrease

16:38

inflammation. This is great

16:40

for dementia, improving your memory, focus,

16:43

concentration. And they

16:45

say that this is possible thanks to this

16:47

very sciency sounding word.

16:50

Something known as autophagy. Autophagy, autophagy,

16:52

autophagy. We're going to talk about

16:55

autophagy. What is autophagy? Okay,

16:59

so not to be that guy at the

17:01

party, but it's actually pronounced autophagy.

17:05

That's according to the five ancient Greek

17:07

speakers that we asked. But

17:09

of course, the big question isn't how do you pronounce

17:11

it? It's what is

17:14

it? Well, autophagy

17:16

is a process that works inside

17:18

your cells and it helps your

17:20

cells to replace damaged parts. And

17:24

it does it in this really cool

17:26

way. The cell literally eats chunks of

17:29

itself. In fact, that's

17:31

what the word autophagy means in

17:33

ancient Greek, self-eating. It's

17:35

the little cannibal inside us all.

17:38

And the key is that the cells can

17:40

recycle those old dud pieces to

17:43

make new shiny parts. He's

17:46

researcher Christopherity again. It's kind of

17:48

a weird term. The body

17:50

starts cleaning itself up, kind of like

17:52

gobbles, gobbles itself up. The

17:54

story you'll hear online is that

17:57

fasting ramps up autophagy, which means

17:59

you'll be getting rid of more

18:01

bong-cell parts and creating new, shinier parts

18:03

and keeping us all healthy, whether that

18:05

means bobbing off all the components or

18:08

making us live longer. And

18:10

a lot of the clones that you're here come

18:12

from studies in animals. So like when

18:14

fruit flies, mice or rats are

18:16

put on fasting dials, they tend

18:18

to live longer. And

18:21

a recent study in fruit fairs found

18:23

that fasting ramps up their autophagy, which

18:25

is actually a really important reason as

18:27

to why they live longer. So

18:31

now there's this big question about

18:33

whether fasting makes you and me,

18:35

you know, humans, live longer, or

18:38

even boosts autophagy in us. Which

18:41

takes us back to Courtney, our

18:43

researcher from Alabama. Wendy,

18:45

who also studies autophagy.

18:48

Yeah, absolutely. And

18:50

she told me that knowing if intermittent

18:52

fasting is wrapping up autophagy in

18:54

you and me, in humans. It's

18:57

tricky. So it's actually really, really

18:59

hard to measure in people. When

19:02

scientists do these autophagy studies

19:04

in flies or rats, sometimes

19:06

they'll mess with their DNA,

19:09

remove bits of tissue, kill them, which

19:11

can be a tough sell for a volunteer

19:13

in a scientific study. So

19:15

when researchers like Courtney are trying

19:17

to sort out this autophagy question,

19:19

they have to get creative.

19:24

Several years ago, Courtney got almost a

19:26

dozen people to fast for 18 hours.

19:30

That meant they could only eat between 8 a.m. and

19:32

2 p.m. Harsh,

19:35

right? Right, because benefits are the

19:37

benefit. We'll see it. They did

19:39

this for four days, and then as a control,

19:41

she got the same people to do a much

19:43

nicer fast, where they would eat from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. And

19:47

what we did is we collected blood cells, and

19:50

then we isolated their DNA. And

19:52

what Courtney wanted to know was whether

19:54

the activity of these genes that have

19:56

been linked to autophagy ramp

19:58

up after people walk. this hectic

20:00

fast. And so if

20:02

you picture how autofodgy works, you've

20:05

got some proteins puddling

20:07

about picking up all that trash, the

20:09

damaged bung cell parts in your body.

20:13

And then you've got the incinerator where we're

20:15

like, okay, bring in the trash, we're going to incinerate this

20:17

and then make new things, new proteins out of

20:19

it. Well, Courtney zoomed

20:21

in on one gene that creates

20:24

the outside casing of that incinerator.

20:26

And what she found is that after people

20:28

did their 18 hour fast, that

20:31

gene did get more active. Amazing.

20:33

And so you found that

20:36

after fasting, we have more incinerator

20:39

cases. Exactly. Exactly.

20:42

It's just super cool. I wasn't expecting to

20:45

see such striking results. Courtney's

20:47

research is exciting, but

20:49

it's not all cupcakes and cookies. We

20:52

actually have a handful of other studies that have

20:55

looked at this autofodgy question in people. And

20:58

they're actually a bit conflicting.

21:00

So some like Courtney suggest

21:02

that intermittent fasting does boost

21:04

autofodgy enough, but others

21:06

don't. And then

21:08

we have some research that has tried

21:10

to tackle this question of does fasting

21:12

boost longevity in a completely different way.

21:17

Scientists will follow people for years to see

21:19

if those who fast live longer than those

21:21

who don't. Some

21:24

of these studies are done in people with heart failure or

21:26

diabetes. And

21:28

it's just important to know that the research

21:30

that we have at the moment that does

21:32

this, it's far from perfect. So a lot

21:34

of this research will survey people for just

21:37

a couple of days about their eating habits.

21:39

And then years later, see, are you dead

21:41

yet? Are you dead yet? So we

21:44

don't actually know if they were practicing fasting for

21:46

that whole time. But

21:49

still, what these studies tend to find

21:51

is that people who said

21:53

that they were fasting for around 16

21:55

hours, they don't

21:57

live longer. And

22:01

just generally, like even away from those studies,

22:04

Krista reckons that the hype around

22:06

fasting as a longevity booster is

22:09

a bit overblown. First and foremost,

22:11

there's never been anything showing like in

22:14

humans that either calorie restriction or

22:16

fasting helps people live longer. You

22:18

know, those are all studies done in like worms

22:21

and yeast and mice and that we're just

22:23

kind of extrapolating from. Since.

22:26

As for the evidence that fasting will make you

22:28

live longer, the proof is in the

22:30

pudding. Which for now, how

22:33

may it end? But there

22:36

is an area of fasting research

22:38

that is racing ahead. And

22:41

it's in cancer. Fasting

22:43

may actually weaken tumors. Researchers are

22:45

looking into the benefits of starving

22:47

cancer. Now

22:50

when we first heard about this, we were

22:52

like, wait, what? But

22:54

there is actually some good science as

22:56

to how this might work. You

22:59

see, many types of cancers love sugar.

23:01

They just like eat it up. And

23:03

this is known for aging. But

23:06

more recently, scientists wondered, well,

23:09

if cancer loves sugar so much

23:11

and when you fast, your body kind

23:13

of runs out of sugar, would

23:15

this cut off the cancer's food supply?

23:20

Walter Longo, a professor in aging at the

23:22

University of Southern California, told us what it

23:24

might be like for a cancer cell when

23:26

someone is fasting. The cancer

23:29

cells, for the first time, it

23:31

finds itself in a very strange

23:33

environment that has never seen before.

23:35

The idea is that once the cancer

23:38

is confused and weakened by fasting, if

23:40

you then add conventional medicine like

23:42

chemotherapy, it's like a one-two punch.

23:45

So combined with fasting, they're hoping

23:48

that the chemo is able to surge

23:51

and destroy every cancer cell,

23:53

call it that by confusion.

23:55

And the reason that I call

23:57

it that is because it's surely about the

23:59

cancer. cancer cells being

24:02

able to adapt to this very

24:04

confusing environment where everything is changed.

24:07

To test this, Volta gave a bunch of

24:09

mice cancer. And he did it

24:11

in this kind of creepy way. The

24:13

cancer cells are injected into

24:16

the mouse, the mass starts growing,

24:19

and eventually if you

24:21

don't do anything, that will kill the mouse.

24:24

Wow. To save the little mousies,

24:26

Volta then put them on a fast as well

24:28

as giving them chemo. And

24:30

it worked. Way

24:33

more of the mice survived compared with mice

24:35

that just got chemo but didn't do the

24:37

fasting. Other scientists doing

24:39

similar work have found this too. They're

24:41

using that one-two punch, chemo

24:43

and fasting. So mice

24:46

were living cancer free. We

24:48

cured lots of mice when we combined the two.

24:50

So it's really interesting how the

24:52

combination can be so much

24:54

more powerful than each intervention

24:56

alone. Volta

24:58

and other scientists are now researching

25:01

whether fasting can help to fight

25:03

cancer in people, which

25:05

can be a little more complicated than working with

25:07

mice. In fact, Volta told

25:09

us that just convincing some experts to

25:12

get patients to try this can be

25:14

tough because many doctors and dieticians

25:16

have been taught that if you have a

25:18

patient going through chemo, you need to get

25:20

them to eat, not fast. Years

25:23

ago, he'd go to conferences and doctors would

25:25

say, You know, this is ridiculous. And

25:27

it's like, oh, you

25:29

know, will I tell my

25:31

patients to fast during chemotherapy?

25:33

Absolutely not. But

25:37

little by little, things have been changing. Thanks

25:40

to some exciting crumbs of research.

25:43

Well, just recently, this one trial

25:45

came out which had more than 100 people

25:48

with breast cancer. Some went on

25:50

a fasting diet three days before chemo as

25:52

well as on chemo day, while

25:54

the others just stuck to their regular diet. The

25:57

research team, which included Volta, took

25:59

images. of the patient's tumors and

26:02

found that for those who were on the fasting

26:04

diet, it was more likely that

26:06

their tumors had shrunk. The

26:08

more the cycle of the fasting

26:10

diet, the more shrinking of the tumor

26:13

and the more killing of the cancer

26:15

cells within the tumor. Another

26:18

study from a few years back of over 2,000 women

26:20

who had breast cancer found that for those

26:23

who fasted more than 13 hours

26:25

each day, they were less likely to

26:27

get breast cancer a second time. And

26:30

then just quickly, recently in Italy,

26:33

researchers did this study where they just

26:35

wanted to see if fasting diets were

26:37

safe for people with advanced cancer, and

26:39

they found that it was. But then

26:42

they followed around 75 people in

26:44

that trial for years to see

26:46

if it actually helped with

26:48

their survival, and it looked like it did.

26:52

It definitely wasn't a cure for everyone, and

26:54

in fact around half the people in the

26:56

trial died from cancer within a few years. But

26:59

the author said that this was still

27:01

better than expected for these patients who,

27:03

remember, had advanced cancer. And

27:07

in that trial, there was something that got

27:09

Valsa really excited. There was

27:11

this handful of patients who were

27:13

what the researchers called extraordinary

27:17

responders. They were

27:19

all staged for colorectal, breast,

27:21

lung, and pancreatic cancer. I

27:24

mean, the type of patient that all oncologists

27:26

would say, this patient is going to die

27:28

very soon, and all of

27:31

them went into remission. Right? So,

27:33

yeah. So I think that certainly brings

27:36

everything to a different level. So

27:38

clearly fasting isn't a silver bullet

27:40

for cancer. But

27:42

this research suggests that for some

27:45

people with some cancers, when

27:47

combined with chemo, fasting

27:50

could be a game changer. I

27:52

hope it gives a lot of hope. I

27:55

hope it gives hope. Obviously you

27:57

still have some doubts because you

27:59

never... now but I mean I say overall

28:01

that the results have

28:03

been very positive. Do you think

28:06

that all patients right now who

28:08

have cancer and are going through

28:10

chemo should start a fasting

28:12

diet? No, I don't.

28:14

So it looks very very promising right? We

28:16

would all be very surprised if it didn't

28:19

work but what if right? What if it

28:21

makes it worse for some patients and or

28:24

you know it doesn't work. So

28:26

yeah I would say that all

28:29

patients with advanced stage cancer

28:32

or cancer for which there is

28:34

nothing working should

28:37

talk to their oncologist. One

28:40

of the uncertainties with cancer patients is

28:42

that some fasting diets could cause

28:44

other problems. Why people might

28:47

lose too much weight and then become

28:49

malnourished. And a weight

28:51

from cancer has got us wondering

28:53

about all other downsides to fasting.

28:57

Yeah other than losing the joy

28:59

of eating. Which takes us

29:01

to the new research that came out last week

29:03

which seemed to suggest that fasting diets

29:06

could actually be dangerous. This

29:08

made big news all around

29:10

the world. Well now to a recent

29:12

health alert that's causing quite a stir we're

29:14

talking about intermittent fasting. This was

29:16

really shocking. Intermittent fasting is

29:18

it dangerous? So this

29:21

study which by the way

29:23

hasn't been peer reviewed yet. I

29:25

know, I know. But it sounds

29:28

that people who said

29:30

that they were eating within an eight

29:32

hour window so let's say fasting for

29:34

16 hours had a higher

29:36

risk of dying from heart disease years while

29:38

now. And this actually isn't the

29:40

first study to find this kind of thing

29:43

which might sound a little scary but

29:46

some scientists have been quite critical of

29:48

these kinds of studies because

29:50

they're not randomized control trials. So we

29:52

really have no idea of knowing whether

29:54

these deaths had anything to do with

29:56

fasting diets or perhaps this is just

29:58

a case of a just kind

30:00

of a coincidence. And

30:03

I know this is frustrating. It's like,

30:05

do these diets dangerous or not? But

30:07

the truth is we just don't have a

30:09

lot of long-term data on people going

30:12

on these diets. And

30:16

then there are some other things to

30:18

think about. Like sometimes fasting diets can

30:20

mask other things going on, like

30:22

easing disorders. Some people

30:25

do report feeling constipated, dizzy or

30:27

weak. And then there

30:29

is this thing that you might not expect. Goldstone

30:32

formation and the need for

30:34

a goldbladder removal goes up.

30:36

Oh, wow. Goldstones

30:38

are lumps in the goldbladder, which can be

30:40

really painful. So that's just

30:43

an example of how

30:46

you cannot think that everything is always going to

30:48

go the way you want it to go. And

30:51

it's these kinds of surprising side effects

30:53

that are why people should be a

30:56

bit cautious before diving into fasting diets,

30:58

particularly the more extreme versions. When

31:01

it comes to intermittent fasting, does it

31:03

stack up like pancakes with maple syrup?

31:10

Will you lose weight? Probably people

31:13

on fasting diets tend to lose

31:15

weight and that's probably because they're eating

31:17

less. It's not magic. True.

31:20

Will fasting make you live longer? There's

31:23

some exciting stuff happening in mice and

31:25

rats and even fruit flies. But

31:27

in people, the studies are like

31:30

a mixed bag of lollies. And

31:33

so, some fasting sites are

31:35

not. Well, the most

31:37

promising research is when fasting is

31:40

combined with chemotherapy. And

31:42

while we already know from the data that this

31:44

isn't a miracle cure and it's not going to

31:46

cure everyone's cancer, it still could help

31:48

a lot of people. Let's wait and

31:51

see. So

31:55

the cap is off. Is this

31:57

a wonder diet or a wonder why? the

32:00

friends are on it, Diane. And

32:02

I think we got to say it's a bit of both. There's

32:05

some interesting work happening here,

32:07

but the throwhards and the health

32:10

fluencers are getting a bit carried away.

32:13

What a surprise. That's

32:15

Science versus Intermittent Fasting. There

32:19

are 147 vocations in this episode. Yes.

32:23

And the last one is about gallstones.

32:25

If you want to read about gallstones,

32:27

fasting, anything we talked about in this

32:29

episode, then just go to our show

32:31

notes and click on the link to

32:33

the transcript and to see

32:35

a photo of what Katie looked like when

32:38

she was wearing that helmet to measure how

32:40

much fat she was wearing. Come to our

32:42

Instagram account where it's science underscore the

32:44

S. And if you're on

32:46

TikTok, then come say hello, because I'm

32:48

there too. I'm at Wendy's Zuckerman. Thanks

32:51

for listening. This

32:59

episode was produced by Kate Linceti, Mr. Rose,

33:01

and Wendy Zuckerman, with her friend Michelle

33:03

Dang, Rens van der Zuener, and Meryl

33:05

Vaughan. We're edited by Brad Swell, the

33:07

extra editing help from Kate Linceti and

33:09

Annyeol Zuckerman. It's spoken

33:11

by Eva Dasher and Michelle Dang. This one's

33:14

sound design by Peter Leonard and Bobby Law.

33:16

Music written by Peter Leonard, Amamanga, Boomi

33:18

Hidaka, and Bobby Law. Thanks

33:20

to all of the researchers that we

33:23

got in touch with for this episode,

33:25

including Dr. Peter Kiznow, Dr. Mikko Holm-Zundelwald,

33:27

Dr. Jiang Hong-Lu, Dr. Dorothy Sears, Professor

33:30

Mark Mattson, Dr. James

33:32

Bood-Vorre, Dr. Callaway Scott, Professor

33:34

Richard Billow, Professor Nancy Borman,

33:36

Dr. Barbara Kowalder, and

33:39

the University of Alabama Birmingham. Also,

33:41

thanks to Kimi Regla, Helen Zeltman,

33:43

Frank Lopez, Zuckerman Family, and Justice

33:45

Lavelle Wilson. I'm Wendy Zuckerman.

33:48

See you next time. you