How can you prevent and stop type 2 diabetes with fasting?

Veröffentlicht am: October 08, 2024
Sarah Allen
Sarah Allen

Nutritionist and dietician

Fasting has been practiced for centuries. In fact, scientific studies have shown that we humans, like animals, have an instinct for fasting that runs through history: Hippocrates prescribed periods of fasting for his patients and swore by fasting with apple cider vinegar.

Fasting is practiced in various forms in many religions. The ancient Greeks did not only prescribe it for illnesses; fasting was an important part of preparing for rituals through which contact with supernatural powers was to be established. Fasting or abstaining from food is also used time and again as a means of political protest.

Gandhi abstained from food on at least 14 different occasions, three times for up to 21 days. Terence McSweeney, the former mayor of Cork, abstained from food for 74 days until his death for political reasons. This happened in 1920 and is still one of the longest fasts a person has ever undertaken. Fasting may seem daunting and challenging at first, but it offers long-term benefits and can help your body detoxify.

For example, combine the cyclical ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting methods with cyclical partial fasting to optimize your own health and longevity and support safe detoxification.

Contents

Summary

  • Type 2 diabetes can only be successfully prevented, treated and even reversed with improved insulin sensitivity. With the help of the "fasting" factor, diseases associated with obesity can be combated.
  • New study results show that you can reduce your total calorie intake per day by exercising in the morning on an empty stomach and having your first meal at lunchtime. This approach can help you lose or maintain your weight.
  • The test subjects in a study fasted from sunrise to sunset. It turned out that eating shortly before going to bed can have a negative impact on your health. Even under the best of circumstances, the stomach takes hours to empty completely. Going to bed immediately after dinner increases your risk of heartburn and acid reflux.
  • Eating within the three hours before bedtime is one of the worst things you can do, as it affects the health of your mitochondria.
  • Fasting is undoubtedly beneficial for your health. However, you should not fast if you are underweight, pregnant, breastfeeding or suffering from an eating disorder. You can increase the health-promoting effect of fasting by following a cyclical ketogenic diet.

Fasting improves insulin sensitivity

Studies repeatedly confirm that fasting can improve insulin sensitivity and reverse type 2 diabetes. Combined with exercise, fasting makes an important contribution to weight optimization.

The latest research findings were presented at Digestive Disease Week 2019. They are based on fasting times of Muslims during Ramadan. The pilot study included 14 healthy individuals who fasted 15 hours a day from morning to evening for 30 days.

Researchers took blood samples before the start of the fasting period and at the end of the fourth week. In addition, blood samples were taken from the test subjects one week after the fasting period. During the 30-day fasting period, the subjects' levels of tropomyosin (TPM) proteins increased, which in turn improved insulin resistance and reduced the harmful effects of a high-sugar diet. Higher levels of TPM 1, 3 and 4 were found in the participants' blood samples. TPM is a key factor in maintaining healthy cells, which are important for insulin resistance.

TPM 3 plays an important role in improving insulin sensitivity, which means better blood sugar control. The research team was led by Dr. Ayse Leyla Mindikoglu, Associate Professor of Medicine and Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and comments on the findings as follows:

"Our food intake and abstaining from food during a fasting period can have a significant impact on how our body makes and uses proteins. This is particularly true for proteins, which are crucial for reducing insulin resistance and maintaining a healthy body weight. Therefore, the timing of food intake and the time between meals can be important factors to consider, especially for people who suffer from secondary diseases due to obesity.

According to the World Health Organization, over 650 million people worldwide are affected by obesity and are at high risk of a variety of health problems as a result.

We are currently extending our research to people who have metabolic syndrome and [non-alcoholic fatty liver] and want to see if the results match those of our healthy volunteers.

Based on our initial research, we believe that fasting from sunrise to sunset may be a cost-effective treatment option for anyone suffering from secondary diseases due to obesity."

Fasting can promote beta cell growth in the pancreas

In an editorial in BMJ10 by renowned researcher James DiNicolantonio, he discusses the results of several studies that have shown that repeated fasting can promote cell growth of pancreatic beta cells in mice.

This growth is accompanied by increased expression of Ngn3. This is a protein that is involved in the conversion of DNA into RNA. This is particularly important for the so-called islets of Langerhans, hormone-producing cells of the pancreas.

In animal experiments, this increase caused by intermittent fasting was accompanied by a significant improvement in blood sugar control. The study results are particularly relevant for people with type 1 diabetes, as the beta cells in these islets are often almost completely destroyed by inflammation.

Similar destruction occurs later in the course of the disease in type 2 diabetics. DiNicolantonio believes that these results can be replicated in clinical trials, opening the way to reversing type 2 diabetes for those who "have enough discipline and commitment and change their lifestyle in a way that would have prevented diabetes altogether."

As a first step, he recommends that everyone should eat a healthy, wholesome diet and get enough exercise, i.e. follow a healthy lifestyle as a preventative measure. This will help to improve their own insulin sensitivity and may already be enough to help those patients who have only recently been diagnosed with diabetes. Sometimes a healthy lifestyle will reverse the disease.

If a healthy lifestyle alone is not enough, DiNicolantonio also recommends intermittent fasting to his patients. Additional protective measures can be taken to ensure that the beta cells are not damaged during the transition from a fasting period to a health-promoting diet and sometimes lose their ability to function.

For example, oxidative stress under the islet cells can be reduced with spirulina. The ultimate goal is to achieve normal blood sugar control without medication while maintaining a lifestyle and diet that prevents diabetes.

No breakfast before exercise contributes to weight control

In another recent study, the scientists evaluated the effect of skipping breakfast before an early morning workout. They published their results in the Journal of Nutrition. The main focus was on how skipping breakfast would affect the rest of the day's food intake.

There is no doubt that exercise plays an important role in weight management and overall health. However, previous studies have shown that people who start a new exercise program often compensate for the energy burned during exercise by eating more or moving less later in the day.

The researchers selected twelve healthy, physically active young men who all followed three different dietary plans - each more than a week apart. One plan provided the test subjects with a breakfast consisting of oatmeal and milk, followed by rest. In another week, they ate the same breakfast but then exercised for 60 minutes. The third plan involved a period of fasting at night until after the workout in the morning. In the following 24 hours, calorie intake was closely monitored and calculated.

The results showed that the test subjects consumed 400 kcal less when they fasted before training and only ate afterwards - in contrast to the days when they ate breakfast first and then either rested or exercised.

The researchers recommend that anyone who wants to reduce their weight and therefore wants to exercise should take these results into account. Javier Gonzalez, Ph.D., from the University of Bath, supervised the study and concludes that exercising on an empty stomach can lead to a calorie deficit on that day.

However, this was a small study with young, healthy men as test subjects. The researchers are not alone in wondering whether similar results would be achieved with older, overweight, untrained or female participants. In addition, the study provides no evidence as to why a calorie deficit was achieved if the participants did not eat before training. Gonzalez hopes to be able to investigate these questions further.

Rising obesity rates, rising disease rates

Diabetes causes the body to become resistant to insulin and leptin, which causes your blood sugar levels to spike. Conventional medicine aims to treat the symptoms of diabetes. Yet the condition is actually preventable and can be reversed in most cases - simply by changing your diet and lifestyle habits.

The main risk factors for the development of insulin resistance are

  • Excessive carbohydrates
  • Added sugar in the diet

These lead to an increase in insulin levels and gradually promote the cells' resistance to insulin. Excessive consumption of carbohydrates and sugar is also one of the main causes of obesity, a growing epidemic in many countries around the world.

The latest findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey show an increasing number of obesity-related illnesses, including:

  • Diabetes
  • High blood pressure
  • Cardiovascular diseases
  • Arthritis
  • certain types of cancer

The rate of adults suffering from obesity increased from 33.7 percent to 39.6 percent between the 2007/2008 and 2015/2016 survey periods.

This increase is attributable to various causes:

  • a predominantly sedentary lifestyle
  • the increased consumption of industrially processed (convenience) foods
  • Medication
  • psychological triggers etc.

Additional benefits of fasting

Not only can fasting help you optimize your weight, but it also offers other health benefits. Cyclical fasting mimics the eating habits of our ancestors and resets our body to its natural state, which allows for a variety of biochemical benefits.

If you eat throughout the day, you accustom your body to burning sugar and carbohydrates as its main source of energy. As a result, it produces fewer enzymes needed to utilize and burn stored fat. This increases your insulin resistance and your risk of gaining weight. You can only lose body fat if your body is able to burn fat.

You can put your body into fat-burning mode by fasting and eating a cyclical ketogenic diet. However, fasting not only normalizes insulin and leptin sensitivity, but also ghrelin levels, also known as the "hunger hormone".

The production of human growth hormone (HGH) is also influenced by fasting. Studies have shown an increase of up to 1,300 percent in women and up to 2,000 percent in men. HGH plays a role in fitness, longevity and muscle growth and promotes fat loss.

Fasting helps to suppress inflammation and can reduce oxidative damage, improve immune function and reduce your risk of heart disease. Higher ketone levels, which occur automatically during fasting, improve cognitive function and reduce the risk of neurological diseases such as dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

The more your body gets used to fat-burning mode, the less you crave sugar. This further boosts fat burning and you continue to lose weight. The results of a study were presented at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society. According to the study, women can drastically reduce their risk of breast cancer through intermittent fasting.

Do not eat anything at least three hours before going to bed

The previously mentioned study showed that intermittent fasting from sunrise to sunset can have health benefitsHowever, eating just before bedtime can have a negative impact on your health. The problem is compounded by the fact that this late night meal is the main meal for many and consists largely of processed or convenience foods.

Even under the best of circumstances, it takes several hours after a meal for the stomach to empty completely. This process takes even longer as you get older or if you suffer from acid reflux. As soon as you lie down shortly after a meal, stomach acid can enter your oesophagus more easily and trigger acid reflux.

You can even suffer from acid reflux without having heartburn. In most cases, symptoms such as hoarseness, constant throat clearing and even asthma occur. A late meal in the evening also disrupts your body's internal clock.

Naturopath and physician Dr. Lee Know addresses the issue of timing our meals correctly and explains what happens when we eat too late in the evening, at a time when our body does not need the energy provided.

In short, such a habit can be one of the worst things you can do to your body, as it damages the mitochondria. A fundamental cause of many degenerative diseases is damaged mitochondria, the little powerhouses found in most of our body's cells.

If the mitochondria receive too much of the right amount of energy, they still suffer damage and eventually fail. This dysfunction forms the basis for the subsequent failure of various body systems.

Take control of your health - with fasting

Millions of people suffer from type 2 diabetes, but this disease is by no means inevitable. Fasting is currently the most effective and far-reaching intervention in the metabolism. It is like a free stem cell transplant and massively regulates autophagocytosis and mitophagy.

Fasting stimulates mitochondrial biosynthesis. During the time when you are not eating, your body can regenerate naturally. For these reasons, fasting is not only beneficial for type 2 diabetes and obesity, but for overall health. In some circumstances, regular fasting may even increase longevity. Some evidence suggests that fasting can help prevent or even reverse dementia by helping the body to remove toxic buildup.

Patients with other diseases can also benefit from fasting, including polycystic ovaries, polycystic kidneys and fast-growing cancer cells. The reason for this is that as autophagocytosis increases, the body breaks down old proteins, including fast-growing cells.

During the time you go without food, more growth hormones are produced, which promote the rebuilding of new proteins and cells. In other words, fasting reactivates and accelerates your body's natural renewal cycle.

Gradually accustom your body to fasting and extend the times when you go without food. In this way, you will reduce most of the side effects of switching to a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet and help your body to get used to fat as its main source of energy.

The so-called "keto flu" is often accompanied by a sodium deficiency. You should therefore consume high-quality pure salt every day. For example, you can simply sprinkle a little salt in your hand and lick it off while you are fasting. (You don't have the option of seasoning your food with it.) This will also reduce the likelihood of stubborn muscle cramps at night.

Instead of taking the salt pure or dissolved in water, you can also add it to a little bone broth. Another important mineral is magnesium. Diabetics (type 2) in particular should keep an eye on their magnesium levels, as this metabolic disorder is associated with a higher risk of magnesium deficiency. A magnesium deficiency can also trigger muscle cramps.

Fasting automatically releases toxins from your fat stores. Using an infrared sauna and taking binders such as chlorella or spirulina, modified citrus pectin, coriander or even activated charcoal can help to remove these released toxins from the body and prevent their absorption.

Fasting is very beneficial for many people, but it is not suitable for everyone. If you are underweight, pregnant, breastfeeding or suffer from an eating disorder, you should not fast.

 

Sources (in English):

Horne, B. D., May, H. T., Anderson, J. L., Kfoury, A. G., Bailey, B. M. et al. (2008, July). Usefulness of Routine Periodic Fasting to Lower Risk of Coronary Artery Disease among Patients Undergoing Coronary Angiography. The American Journal of Cardiology, 102(7): 814–819, doi: 10.1016/j.amjcard.2008.05.021

Hernandez, A. R., Hernandez, C. M., Campos, K., Truckenbrod, L., Federico, Q., Moon, B. et al. (2018, December). A Ketogenic Diet Improves Cognition and Has Biochemical Effects in Prefrontal Cortex That Are Dissociable From Hippocampus. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 10: 391., doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2018.00391

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Halagappa, V. K., Guo, Z., Pearson, M., Matsuoka, Y., Cutler, R. G., LaFerla, F. M. et al (2007, April). Intermittent fasting and caloric restriction ameliorate age-related behavioral deficits in the triple-transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. Neurobiology of Disease, Volume 26, Issue 1, doi: 10.1016/j.nbd.2006.12.019

Gingery, J. G. & Williams, C. (2019, March). Time-restricted eating may help prevent breast cancer, mouse study suggests. Endocrine Society, Verfügbar unter: [https://www.endocrine.org/news-room/2019/endo-2019---time-restricted-eating-may-help-prevent-breast-cancer]