Maddy Mason, Accord, NY wrote:
>
> A new mouse study suggests fasting every other day can help fend off diabetes
> and protect brain neurons as well as or better than either vigorous exercise
> or caloric restriction. The findings also suggest that reduced meal frequency
> can produce these beneficial effects even if the animals gorged when they did
> eat, according the investigators at the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

Very good post, Maddy.

The question is: is it good to be in a catabolic state a lot of the
time, or not? And as I said before, Faigin seems to say "NO" while there
is research to suggest "YES".

 From a paleo perspective, I can understand that H-Gers would be hungry
for awhile, eating very little or nothing, then would gorge on protein
and fat. So I can see how we could be adapted to eating this way.

I finished reading Anson et al "Intermittent fasting disassociates
beneficial effects of dietary restriction on glucose metabolism and
neuronal resistance to injury from calorie intake" (PNAS, May 13, 2003,
v.100, no. 10) (poorly entitled but that's another story), and it has
tons of cites and is very, very compelling at least to me.

I am starting to believe that the benefits of calorie reduction can be
ours through intermittent fasting (IF). IF protects against tumor growth
and induces ketosis, as well as promoting more IGF-1, which according to
Faigin shouldn't happen, as I read his book.

As the paper says, "the findings of this study suggest that IF can
enhance health and cullulrar reistance to disease even if the fasting
period is followed by a period of oevereating such that overall caloric
intake is not decreased."

Very powerful stuff. I find it more convincing than Faigin's book and I
am starting to experiment around in my own diet to see how I can employ
a more or less "paleo IF" diet.

There are two ways I can see:

1. eat once per day then a full meal

2. eat as much as you want every other day, and fast in between.



--Richard