The National Council Against Health Fraud "strongly advises against the use of prolonged fasting for health purposes, and believes that requiring children to fast is a form of child abuse." https://www.ncahf.org/articles/e-i/fasting.html
Your first link talks specifically of fasting every other day, and is about rats. That is completely irrelevant to 5 day fasting in humans, whereas [0] is.
Your second link is from 1995; A lot has happened since. Yes, children should probably not fast. Other than that, more recent data (as well as old, but ignored, data) show that water fasting is good for you. And Valter Lango's research (see [0], and google for more) shows that it's actually extremely beneficial in many cases, especially during chemotherapy.
I agree. One normal meal a day for a long period. It quickly becomes a habit and you no longer feel hunger. No requirement on the meal as long as it is reasonable (life is too short to eat things that taste bad!). And some exercise (45min cardio daily, doesn’t need to be high intensity), though I suspect losing weight is 80% food intake, 20% exercise. Worth taking some vitamin complements though.
I agree. Fasting is good and simple for weight loss. My first step was removing snacks. Now I am skipping breakfast. I see results. Take a look at this blog: https://simplelifeweightloss.blogspot.com/ Author has been on intermittent fasting for 12 years. It's quite inspiring.
I've read that fasting can increase GH levels. Do you know of any studies that directly link fasting to muscle growth? Intuitively I would guess that increased GH in the absence of a calorie surplus might lead to good muscle maintenance but poor muscle growth, particularly in people who already have a decent amount of muscle.
I do not know of studies, other than anecdotes such as this one:
> So, during the FMD I lost approximately 4.2 lbs of body fat, while GAINING nearly a pound of muscle! There was also a nice muscle building “rebound” effect once my fast ended and I began to exercise again.
As someone who regularly fasts for a variety of reasons, I would agree -- it's nearly impossible to gain muscle while fasting anyway, and without working out in any way I can't imagine how that could happen at all.
But most likely the tool is measuring inaccurately.
I did a water fast for 2 weeks. It was...kind of amazing actually, recommend to try it at least once if you can. One tip: when you are done and are ready to break it, introduce food very slowly, I didn't and it was unpleasant to say the least.