Scientists Discover Surprising Hidden Benefit of Fasting

Fasting has long been a part of the world’s major religions and has even caught on within the past few years as a health trend here in the United States. Some people fast intermittently, restricting their food intake to just a few hours a day, while some bio-hackers are fasting for days at a time. Scientists are now taking a closer look at fasting and its health benefits, and they’re making some interesting discoveries.

Pixabay A group of scientists is claiming that a twenty-four hour fast can provide a healthy boon to the intestines of humans. Since the intestines are vital in helping protect and promote healthy tissue and combat many diseases, maintaining that organ’s health is very important. As we age, intestinal stem cells lose their ability to regenerate, thus weakening the barrier that separates our healthy digestive system from the score of bacteria and viruses that try to enter it through the mouth.

Pixabay MIT biologist Omer Yilmaz tested how fasting effects intestinal health and found that during a 24 abstinence from food or drink, the stem cells in the intestines are ‘triggered’ into a faster-paced regeneration process. “Fasting has many effects in the intestine, which include boosting regeneration as well as potential uses in any type of ailment that impinges on the intestine, such as infections or cancers,” says Yilmaz. “This study provided evidence that fasting induces a metabolic switch in the intestinal stem cells, from utilising carbohydrates to burning fat.”

Wikimedia Commons Not only does fasting use stored fat as energy, but it also improved how it used the fat. Science Alert writes that “Yilmaz’s team took intestinal stem cells from mice that had fasted for 24 hours and grew them in culture to grow masses of cells called organoids, a kind of organ-like ‘mini intestine’. “When they did this, they saw the regenerative capacity of the stem cells from fasting mice was double that of regular mice that hadn’t fasted.” The fasting mice had RNA samples taken, which lead to the discovery that the subjects’ nucleic material had activated transcription factors called peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor, or PPARs. These PPARs are genetic switches for turning the metabolization of fatty acids on and off.

Pixabay Scientists than uses a PPAR molecule called GW501516 to replicate the regenerative process in non-fasting mice. “That was also very surprising,” says one of the researchers, Chia-Wei Cheng. “Just activating one metabolic pathway is sufficient to reverse certain age phenotypes.” If further tests continue to be positive, the work of the scientists may allow for the regeneration of intestinal cells via a pill or similar drug treatment. “In a beautiful set of experiments, the authors subvert the system by causing those metabolic changes without fasting and see similar effects,” says biochemist Jared Rutter from the University of Utah, who wasn’t involved in the research.

Pixabay “This work fits into a rapidly growing field that is demonstrating that nutrition and metabolism [have] profound effects on the behaviour of cells and this can predispose for human disease.”

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