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5 Incredible benefits of intermittent fasting
Posted on: 16/Apr/2019 9:12:04 AM
Fasting is recently being in trend among youngsters and people across India. This is not really a contemporary trend and rather centuries old and has been in practice with a lot of religions and cultures.
Fasting is basically to not eat or drink anything for specific time period. This is practiced in many different ways. Of all the kinds, the common time period of fasting is between 24 and 72 hours.
Coming on to intermittent fasting, we eat for hours and fast for specific hours of the day. It comes with a lot of health benefits including weight reduction, increased brain function, and lot more. So, below is a rundown of all the key benefits of fasting that you should definitely know in case you are looking to kick-start your fasting practice.
Better sugar control
According to studies, fasting largely helps in improving control over body’s blood sugar level. This will be of great help for the diabetics. In fact studies stand by the fact that fasting can help fight blood sugar levels.
Setting this aside, there is also another review that states the benefits of intermittent fasting over reduced calorie intake.
As there is lesser insulin resistance in your body, it means there is very high sensitivity towards insulin. So, glucose will get transported from your blood stream to all the other cells with increased efficiency.
Furthermore, fasting also aids in standardizing and stabilizing blood sugar. It will prevent unforeseen spikes and smashes uncertainties.
Note that the case with men and women in terms of the association between blood sugar levels and fasting is different.
Ultimately, there is huge benefit of intermittent fasting or alternate day fasting towards bringing down blood sugar levels, and also bring down insulin resistance.
Healthier than before
Generally, acute inflammation is a process that our body naturally undergoes in order to combat with any kind of infection or chronic inflammation so that there is no serious health consequence. Such inflammation may be of any kind and may result in any condition such as heart ailment or cancer or rheumatoid arthritis. According to studies, such inflammation levels can be substantially reduced and achieve better overall health just through fasting.
A study was conducted involving 50 healthy adults where they were subjected to intermittent fasting for 1 month. This showed huge reduction in inflammation levels. There was one more study where the effect of intermittent fasting (12 hours fasting) for 1 month was studied.
It is clearly stated that taking very low calorie intake will have quite the same effect as fasting. It also helps in reducing inflammation and make overall improvement in health in cases of multiple sclerosis which is a very chronic condition.
Better heart health
Fasting helps in improving your heart’s overall health. It enhances blood pressure and balances triglycerides and cholesterol levels. Reports say one of the most common causes of death in this world is heart diseases. Nearly 31.5 percent deaths happen due to heart ailments globally, the reports add. So, by altering your d diet practices and lifestyle habits, you can bring forth a positive change in your heart health.
A study conducted in this regards involved assessing a group of people for 8 weeks. The group was subjected to alternate day fasting, and it was found that there was substantial reduction in bad cholesterol level.
There was one more study conducted in this regard where 110 people were subjected to fasting for a total period of 3 weeks. They were constantly kept under medical supervision and their levels of blood pressure and blood triglycerides were monitored. The results of the study state that there was dip in LDL cholesterol level.
Furthermore, there is lesser risk of coronary artery disease among a group of 4000+ people who were made to fast. Also, their risk of diabetes got reduced too.
Improved brain function
Fasting also helps in enhancing your brain function and reduce likeliness of neurodegenerative disorders. According to many researches, there is also very positive impact of fasting on brain health. A study was conducted on mice where they were made to intermittently fast for a period of 11 months and it was discovered that they showed drastic improvement in their brain activities.
Fasting also protects our brain health and also boosts production of nerve cells and improves cognitive functioning. Basically, fasting helps in these through inflammation relief. The study results also claim that fasting helps in bringing down the effects of Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease. The studies done thus far are not enough, and we need more of such researches and studies on these topics.
Healthy weight reduction
Fasting helps in reducing weight as you consume reduced calories. It further enhances your body`s metabolism. Hence fasting is often used as a quick way to weight reduction, especially among those who aim at faster weight loss.
As you abstain from consuming food and all kinds of beverages for specific time period, it naturally reduces your calorie intake and thus promotes weight loss as you habitually practice fasting for a period time.
Also there is one more positive aspect of fasting which is the increase in body`s metabolic rate. This is achieved through surge in neurotransmitter level that is the main element for weight loss.
Do you know that you can reduce up to 9 percent of your body weight through 1 day of fasting? Yes you got to believe. So you can largely reduce your body fat through fasting for 12 to 24 weeks.
