[sfourdrinier]

actually there are studies especially from David Sinclair that shows that fasting and calorie restrictions help mice live longer and healthier.

For those interested here is a great interview with David Sinclair, Harvard Researcher on aging:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZqAKNPxaxc

[fredophile]

I'm very skeptical of any diet related advice based on studying mice. Mouse metabolism is very different from human metabolism.. Fasting a mouse for 24 hours will result in a fairly large loss of body mass. Fasting a person for 24 hours will result in a pound or two of weight loss.

I'm not against doing these kinds of studies on mice but the only conclusion you can really get is that we should do longer studies on animals that are closer to humans or on humans themselves.

[thesz]

Pound of fat, or, in SI, 453 grams of fat, is 4077 calories (9 calories per gram of fat).

Most probably, weight loss will be less than pound in water calorie restriction.

Also, there was studies on Ramadan fasting and they've found almost two fold increase of serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor at the end of fast. Level of BDNF correlates with neuroneogenesis in brain.