Intermittent Fasting for Metabolic and Heart health
I’m really excited by the idea of metabolic flexibility.
I want to be able to burn fat and carbs and anything I want to eat! Cleanly and well.
Over and above the weight and fat loss benefits, IF has metabolic benefits and may help not just with overweight and obesity, but with metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease as well.
People who IF sometimes have improved insulin sensitivity and blood sugar levels. They also show improve blood lipids and even reduced inflammatory markers. All of these are related to improved metabolism and reduced risks for many chronic diseases.
One study found that people who IFed for 6-24 weeks and lost weight also benefited from reduced blood pressure.
One unique way IF works is by making our metabolism more flexible, which we’ll talk about in our next post.
This is really important for blood sugar control and diabetes risk because, according to Harvie (2017):
“Metabolic inflexibility is thought to be the root cause of insulin resistance.”
Another researcher, Anton (2015) says:
“When taken together with animal studies, the medical experience with fasting, glucose regulation and diabetes strongly suggests IF can be effective in preventing type 2 diabetes.”
Most researchers find these results promising, and recommend more high-quality longer-term trials.
I will write about how IF and TRE (time restricted eating) can affect mental health and cognitions (edit: I did so at length under my post “Easy ways to avoid dementia”), but suffice it to say, IF has great effects on our brain health (cognition) and mental health (emotion and relation).
In terms of our moods, that is less clear.
Researchers are still learning about the brain and mental health benefits of IF or TRE in people. Short-term studies show some people report improvement in tension, anger, and confusion from IF (anyone want to get their loved ones doing this?); while others report bad temper and lack of concentration as side effects from it.
If anyone wants to comments from experience and their own moods, I would love to hear your experience!!
xoxo
Dana
